OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 21, 20 February 1891, Page 20

OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

(Wellington JOvening Post.) THE Nero Zealand Herald has a very able article om the defects of our system of education in a late issue. It appeals strongly to the new Minister of Education to amend defects. We make the following extracts, which put the matter very forcibly :— What do they find to be the kind of " education " which has been given in the public schools f Has it developed the mental powers of a population whicb, if we have any faith in heredity, ought to be exceptionally intelligent ? Has it been of such a kind' as to give the youDg people, after they have left school, a thirst for knowledge, and an ardent desire to supplement that small amount they have acquired by fursher study ? Do we find our young people, as a class, availing themselves of the treasures of literature and science to be found in the Free Library ? Do they flock to scientific or historical lectures ? Do they show any interest in the habits and customs of other races f . Let Mr. W. P. Beeves try a very simple and easy experiment. Let him ask some mercantile frierjd in Wellington to advertise for a'i errand boy at 7s or 8s a week, and then let Mr. Beeves himself examine the crowds of applicants. They wilt all have passed the fourth, and most of them the fifth and sixth standards. Let him ask them a few questions in New Zealand geography, if they have passed the sixth. He will probably be told, as a gentleman we know was very recently, that the applicant had not had to learn any New Zealand geography during his last year. Let him ask simple questions, as, " What are the names of the provincial districts ? whereabouts are they situated ? what are their chief towns ? what are their ports." Ask these boys for the names of any three of the Governors who have preceded Lord Onslow, or of any three of the Premiers of the colony, or as to the constitution of the colony, or the composition of the Legislative Council and the houee of Bepreßentatives. We will guarantee that not one in twenty will give correct answers. And this is not from stupidity, but eimply because the children have not been educated, except as a grey parrot is educated. A new errand boy was sent to post a letter addressed to Wellington. He looked at the ad iress, and then asked whether he should poßt it in tbe box for inside or outside New Zealand. On being pressed, he aamitted that Wellington was the capital of the colony, but was not sure whether it was inside or outside New Zealand. Let Mr. Reeves ask a few questions about the predominant induetries in Canterbury and Otago, or how the rivers of the Canterbury Plains are fed, and why a hot northwester will cause them to flood. He will find that the boys write rery well (much better than he does himself), and know arithmetic . thoroughly, but let him give them the heads of the eimplest business letter, and ask them to put it into shape, and see how many could, fores ample, compose a letter complaining of a shipment of butter, and telling the correspondent that the consignee would hold his firm responsible for any loss that may be sustained by i+s sale. Let him note tbe defects in spelling, grammar, and composition. Let him ask the boys to read a leader in that " highly respectable paper," the LyUeUon Times, and then question the reader as to the ideas conveyed to the boys' mind by its lucid sentences. Finally let him examine the boys about the "records" in cricket, football, running, and other athletic sports ; let him ask them what are the odde on the principal horses entered for the Melbourne Cup, or tbe local races, and Jet him note the brightening of their faces, the intelligence and correctness of their answers, and if he allows a discussion to go on amongst them on these subjects, the keen and logical way in which they will argue tbe disputed pomta. The fact is that they are good material, spoilt in the making. When he bis m>»de one or two experiments of this kind, let him ask himself whether there is not something faulty in the system which takes a child at five and turns him out at thirteen no better instructed tham thesi boys are. They are_ not scholars ; they are not young gentlemen. They have no polish, their accent aad their grammatical blunders still stamp them as belonging to the class below the educated classes. And yet any English public school boy who Iras been at a public school for six or eight years, no matter what his parentage may have been, carries with him the unmistakeable stamp of an educated youog gentleman, both in speech and manners An immense amount of time is spent in compelling children to learn minute matters which they need never iearn at all but for the dreadful examinations. There are thousands of questions which an inspector may ask, and some of which they all atk, which no child ought to be expected to answer correctly. We ought to have the inspectors' questions published. — We ought to know who are responsible for this perpetual grind which wears out so many young lives Thra standards are a bed of Procrustes. All have to be dragged through them somehow or other, or the "percentage" is lowered, and the teacher's reputation destroyed.