The common cry in almost every newspaper article on education now, is the lowering of standards of attainment. "Children ain't what they used to be in my young days." It is significant that the subjects which are always chosen as exemplifying this lowered standard are spelling, writing and arithmetic.

And from where do the complaints come? Largely from business men. Their chief moan, is of course, that children are no longer solely fitted to become good clerks, and their implicit assumption is that the aim of education is to prepare children to fit neatly into their place in office or industry. "In the good old days," they say, "children who came out of schools could write, spell, and add, fluently and accurately." This, they maintain is no longer the case.

Where?

For the purpose of this article we will assume that standards have been lowered (though many N.Z.E.I. people are prepared to dispute the extent of this assumption). It is true that children now may not do till Std. 2 what used to be done in Primer 4. But is this necessarily a bad thing? In other words what are the aims of education?

Even supposing that a child now leaving school cannot write in the copperplate of the 1890's, is this necessarily a bad thing? In other words what are the aims of education? Let's see what they were.

How?

"All that a child was guaranteed by our own Education Act of 1877 was a grounding in a narrow range of formal subjects and that only up to Std. 6."

"Arithmetic . . . was intensively drilled and took up about a third of a child's school life . . . geography was apt to be little more than the memorising of strings of capes and bays, mountains, rivers, lakes and capitals; and since a typical prescription in history began the succession of Houses and Sovereigns from 1066 A.D. to 1485 A.D.,' there was every suggestion that this subject was treated in a similar way."

Is the achievement of that sort of knowledge the aim or education?

The child who sat hour after hour being drilled and bludgeoned and "disciplined" into memorising fact after fact certainly came out of school filled to the measured mark with knowledge—little of which had any relation to his future life as a citizen or to his personal needs as a human being, The very term "standard" implied a preconceived notion, arbitrarily decided, of what the child was capable of doing or profiting from. Worse still, the primitive psychology of the times insisted on fitting the child to the system. (See the cartoon reproduced in the front of A. E. Campbell's "Educating New Zealand.") The system seemed to be aiming at turning out the largest possible number of walking encyclopaedias. Instead of starting with an a priori, assumption of the child's needs, modern educational psychology starts by studying the child, first, and then evolves the system to fit the facts.

Why?

H. G. R. Mason gives the aims of modern education in his "Education Today and Tomorrow" as follows—"to provide a broader education of the whole being—mental, moral and physical. Also "every person whatever his level of academic ability . . . has a right as a citizen, to a free education of the kind for which he is best fitted and to the fullest extent of his powers."

From the point of utility, of what real use is the ability to trot forth facts at command? More facts can be found in appropriate books, machines can cope with arithmetical problems more quickly and accurately, and hand-writing is not at such a premium when type-writers can do the job more efficiently and in less time.

It would be sheer stupidity to waste time competing with these modern inventions, even if that were the aim of education. And it is not. The cry of "raising the standards" is an anachronism. I maintain that a departure from the previous standards of attainment is not making for a low standard of education. It is merely that the accent has been shifted from sterile academic attainments to an education that eaters for a full development of a child's capabilities in any and all spheres which suit his needs.

If anyone would like to pursue this further the matter is well dealt with in H. G. R. Mason's "Education Today and Tomorrow." The short outline of the aims of New Zealand Education on page 8 is probably the best exposition of educational philosophy in a few words one can find.

Bright Lights

The most recent criticism, commonly linked with remarks about the Government's "deliberate policy of mediocrity" is that bright children are penalised. When the ratio of children going from primary to secondary schools has risen in thirty odd years from less than 20% to nearly 90%, it is obvious that the attitude of secondary schools can no longer cater exclusively for the few picked academic brains. Maybe in the re-organisation these children have lost a little—but the greatest number have gained; and they too must have benefited from the change in policy which has taken the secondary schools curriculum out of the tight harness of matriculation sterility and formalism. Parkyn's new-book "Children of High Intelligence in New Zealand" shows that constructive criticism, though rare, is at least present. It is undeniable that the Government Policy of encouraging Intermediate Schools has been of the greatest direct benefit to bright children. It does this, however, without suffering from the curse of the continental school system—a rigid class cleavage into separate schools.

This article is by no means exhaustive. The matter will he well ventilated at the debate on Friday, 10th June, when the subject will be "That education In New Zealand has deteriorated since 1835."

If you have any mutterings, don't hide them under a bushel.

E.M.G.