THE NEW EDUCATION

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 202, 27 July 1937, Page 2

THE NEW EDUCATION

CONFERENCE IMPRESSIONS. ENTHUSIASM OF TEACHERS. “Undoubtedly bne of the deepest impressions left as the.result of the conference was the enthusiasm of the .hundreds of teachers and others attending the various seminars and lectures.” said Mr M. H. Oram, of Palmerston North, when commenting to a reporter to-day on the New Education fellowship Conference at Wellington which he attended. u So in tens© did that enthusiaem become at times,” lie added, “that one could sense a feeling akin to a religious revival or a renewal of faith in what can be accomplished by education—especially in new. education —provided it is not fettered and bound in chains.” ~ ~ _ . It was hoped, as:d Mr Oram, that while the spirit lasts the suggested movement to form branches of the fe’loivship in all important centres would be pushed ahead so that the flame of inspiration lighted by the conference might be kept alive and burning. : “ ‘Standing room duly’ was the word when Dr. Dengler was due to commence his final lecture at 11 a.m. in the b : g Town Hall, while the same place was filled at least a quarter of an hour before Dr. Boyd began the concluding lecture the same evening. So many and varied, and so intensely interesting, were topics for discussion at the morning seminars that the great regret of the majority was Jth.it they could not be in half a'dozen places at once Jhe men and women who comprised the visiting delegation were all of pre-em-inent ability and wide experience and were representative of many diverse aspects of education ill manv different countries,”"he continued. “They came to New Zealand not to criticise, or tell ns how our job might lie. done, but to give us the benefit of their knowledge. their- wide experiences, 'be rr.any problems that they had been called upon to lace, and the methods thev and others had adopted in facing wia solving the problems. They came to give what assistance and encouragement lay within their power, and then to leave us. as Dr. Bovd put it. ‘to work out our own salvation in fear and treml>ling.’

AS OTHERS SEE US. “Criticism was, of course, inevitable,” said Mr Oram, “and as Professor Shelley phrased it many things had been said publiclv that had needed saying for a long time; but one felt privileged to see matters educational through the eyes of these very able and interesting people: to see our sv6tem, as it were, from the outside through other eyes than our own and, at last, to take" a.n . impartial view of many problems that hitherto we had perhaps treated in a somewhat partisan spirit. “Dr. Bovd finds us as a people ‘intelligent but dull’ and that is not the only time a similar criticism has been levelled at us. Members of the Russian Ballet used almost the same identical words, and when the same opinion comes from two such divergent sources it is time that we asked ourselves whether it is true and whether we are not devolping a certain smugness, _ a self satisfied complacence, and an impression that we are very pleased with ourselves and the way we do things, lie declared.- ’ '■ While that might not be due entirely to our system of education there was no doubt in his mind that properly developed education should, in a very short time, be ab’e compeletely to banish the element of dullness from our national make-up. “The importance we lvivo placed on examinations general!v and the baleful influence exerted throughout by the matriculation examination, 60 generally misunderstood in purpose and object by so many people, caused consternation in the minds of our visitors. Another tiling that came in for adverse comment was our svstem of grading of teachers,” declared Mr Oram. “The 'system when introduced represented an advance on what existed before and was a. definite cure for certain evils, but in practice developed latent defects that call for its abolition and replacement by something more in keeping with modern thought.

PECULIARITIES OF CONTROL. “Emphasis was also placed on- the advantages of true decentralisation of control and surprise was expressed at the peculiar way our primary and secondary departments of education had grown up in separate water-tight compartments with different rules and principles applicable to each. “Most interesting to me was tho analysis made by Air Salter Davies or tho growth and development of the central school in England as a result of the development sketched in the Hadow reorganisation scheme for the education of the adolescent. It convinced me more than ever that we are on right lines with our intermediate school idea, which is based on these central schools varied to suit New Zealand conditions ; but here again we must not be too dogmatic,, but have our system and organisation sufficiently elastic so that' it can be readily altered at a minimum of expense and upset to meet changing conditions. “One outstanding feature of the conference was the intense personal interest shown by the Alinister of Education, Hon. P. Fraser, who attended as many of the seminars and lectures as he could, and who frankly stated that lie had derived much benefit and invaluable information and guidance.

“Tlie conference came at a most important and opportune time in the history of education in this country, occurring as it did on the eve of important changes in our system generally on which the views expressed and the result of the discussions must have an important and far reaching effect. “I think everyone left the conference with a feeling of inspiration and hope renewed that we could, in this country, with unselfish co-operatiori, realise in no small measure the true purport of education—a purport contained in the derivation of the word itself—‘e-ducere’ —‘to lead out,’ as I have suggested before, our children from darkness into the lighted storehouse in which are gathered the treasures of the liumau mind and intellect, its arts and science,” concluded Air Oram.