The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 18&2. CRAM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume X, Issue 489, 25 August 1882, Page 15

The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 18&2. CRAM.

fVERY one who understands what education means denounces cram as most injurious. The newspapers and periodicals are up in arms against it. Teachers' Associations protest against it ; University Professors either ridicule it, or laboriously argue against it ; literary men speak of it in scornful terms ; and such of the general public as are sufficiently educated to form a correct opinion on the subject, laugh at the idea of raising up an educated people through the process of cram. Yet no impression seems to be made on the system by this general outcry of people who are best able to judge how injurious it is to the cause of real education. This is a phenomenon, and cannot fail to arrest the attention of the thoughtful. These will naturally enquire how it comes to pass that a system condemned by all who are best qualified to judge of its demerits, nevertheless nourishes. At first sight it is strange it should be so, and yet on investigation it will be found not to be so strange after all. Two causes have very naturally led up to the adoption of the system of cram. One, and the first in point of time, is that unjust and bigoted conservatism that retained so long nil scholastic endowments exclusively for the use and benefit of the members of the State religion, and even now practically ( xcludes all Catholics from their fair share in the advantages of these endowments and institutions. Tbe time came when it was no longer safe to entirely shut out from public employment all who had not btudied in State institutions, and as these institutions would not relax their exclusive rule and the State refused even-handed justice to Catholics and dissenters in providing for them the facilities of education provided for their non-Catholic fellow-citizens, the system of competitive examinations was established, and this inevitably brought into practice the system of cram. The present possession of a certain amount of information was all that was tested and all that could tell, and no enquiry was made as to the mode in which this information had been acquired. Had the Government, say, half a century ago, given all citizens , (quality so far as facilities of acquiring a real education are concerned, it is exceedingly improbable that the system of cram would be heard of to-day. t Another reason why this plague prevails so extensively at present is to be found in the irrational mode in •which matters pertaining to schools are now managed. School Boards and f chool Committees elected by, we may say, universal suffrage, or in many instances by a little knot of busy-bodies who represent nobody, and whose conceit and ignorance is so great that they are ready to undertake all things, have in the times in which we live the entire management of schools. These are composed for the most part of either totally or very imperfectly educated men, who set a very high value on show and smartness, and very often undervalue genuine education because they do not know what it means. Men who have nmde up their minds to earn their bread by teaching must please their employers, and as show and smartness alone are valued, these of course are the qualities they endeavour to produce in their pupils : this leads to cram. It is an axiom that the same causes produce the same effects. So long, therefore, as all citizens are eligible for government employment, and educational facilities are provided by the State, from which one part of the population is practically excluded, as for example in New Zealand, so long will cram prevail. Again, so long as the administration of schools is left in the hands of men elected as School Boards and School Committees now are, so long will cram be the order of the day . There is only one way to put an end to cram, and that is to help all citizens alike to obtain a real education, and to leave the management of educational matters in the hands of

educated people. Justice and common sense would soon put an end to cram, but unfortunately neither justice nor common sense exist here in reference to education. If a house is to be built, an architect is employed ; engineers are sought for when a railroad is to be made ; if one is sick, a medical doctor is called in : but there are two subjects with which, it appears, all men, without exception, are thoroughly conversant — and these are religion and education. In fact, according to modern ideas, the only people who are thoroughly incompetent to deal with these are the experts, — people who have made them the study and occupation of their lives. Everybody else is perfectly qualified to pronounce upon them an infallible opinion !