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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 78
The Evils of Cram
The Evils of Cram
Mr Acland.—
"Anyone who could strike out five-sixths of the examinations of this country, and who would carry away and deposit on the Dogger Bank whole shiploads of certificates, would be doing a very effective public service."
Herbert Spencer.—
"To tens of thousands that are killed add hundreds of thousands that survive with feeble constitutions and mil ions that grow up with constitutions not so strong as they should be, and you will have some idea of the curse inflicted on their offspring by parents ignorant of the laws of life."
Dr Clouston.—
"As physicians—the priests of the body and guardians of the physical and mental qualities of the race—we are, beyond all doubt, bound to oppose strenuously any and every kind and mode of education that in any way lessens the capability of women for healthy maternity, and the reproduction of future generations strong mentally and physically. Why should we spoil a good mother by making an ordinary grammarian?"
Dr Lindo Ferguson.—
"They (the doctors) must do something. Such a state of affairs could not be permitted to continue without protest and effort at reform. If they could get the first cut into the upas tree they would do well."
Dunedin : The 'Evening Star' Company, Limited, Bond and Crawford streets. 1906.
Overstrain in our Schools.
Our Education System is too oppressive, with its overcrowded syllabus; and in my opinion, if it is maintained, the physique of the race will suffer. In-stead of so much complicated brain work, we should be satisfied with a more thorough and a more useful training in a very few subjects specially selected to suit the abilities and environment of each student. This should be done soon after leaving the Primary School, and, in many cases, before doing so. Throughout an educational career there should be no strain, no working for pass examinations, no long hours of study, no weary drudgery of work.—Robert Lee, Chairman Wellington Education Board (late Chief Inspector of Schools, Wellington district), in 'New Zealand Times,' September 1st, 1906.
Health and Education.
It is a proof of the perversity of human nature that it is still necessary to discuss the relation between Education and Health. . . . Complete health—good, strong physical, mental, and moral health—is an acquisition more desirable than anything else, and therefore, if the community were guided by intelligence . . . the attainment of complete health by all persons would be the one object of all education systems. . . . For the ordinary family, lack of physical health means unemployableness and morbid thought and feeling; and unemployableness and morbid thought and feeling mean loafing, vice, crime.—Mr T. C. Horsfall, in 'Contemporary Review,' March, 1906.
Breaking Down of Teachers.
While an application for sick-leave by a female teacher was being considered at last Tuesday's meeting of the Hawke's Hay Education Board, Inspector Hill remarked that during the whole course of his experience he ha never known so many lady employees of the Board to break down absolutely in a similar period as during the last twelve months. This he attributes to the over-exacting demands of the Education Department's new syllabus.—Dunedin 'Evening Star,' September 12, 1906.