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Editorial Notes., -i

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Editorial Notes. We are glad that another start is being made in the Rhondda with the Evening Schools. This phase of the educational provision of the country has received the most serious consideration lately of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education. The reading of the conclusions of the report gives us the most disquiet- ing reflections. The Schools at present in England and Wales are conducted upon the voluntariness of the pupils. They come and go at their own sweet will, and, unhappily, the attendance is most dis- appointing. It is estimated that there are about 211,000 children in the country between the ages of 14 and 18, and the percentage of these who attend our Evening Schools is deplorable. Witness after witness told the Committee that everywhere the attendances of our adolescent youth, both boys and girls, at these Schools are most unsatisfactory. His Majesty's Inspector for the Merthyr district "considered that the failure of boys and girls to continue their education after leaving the Day School was a great drawback to the young people themselves, and seriously affected the general intelli- gence of the community." There is no turning back that statement. The boy or girl who leaves the Day School at the early date which the Rhondda Education Committee, for instance, permit, unless he or she follows the education up by a course in an Evening School, is distinctly at a great disadvantage in the area of life. It is full time for the Rhondda Education Committee to raise the stan- dard of school exemption. It is true that, if the boy is one of late development, or has an early history of neglect, he has to stay on until he is 14 years of age. Mr. Edwards' opinion is that if the standard of exemption were, raised for all to the age of 14, that this in itself would help to improve the attendance at Evening Schools. And further, he says that if they had remained at School till then, they would be much more likely to realise their need for education and go straight on to the Evening Schools." It is not to the credit of the Rhondda Education Committee that, it should be the last Authority in Glamorgan in the matter of exemption. Merthyr was, until recently, in companionship, but last year it raised the qualification of the Labour Examina- tion to the Sixth Standard, and thus left the Rhondda behind all the other County Authorities. The entrance to the colliery is generally 13, and not infrequently 14 years of age. The bulk of the scholars pass the Fifth Standard soon after 12 years of age. Between this and the pit- entering period there is a fearful wastage of past effort and much undoing in that time of the school work done. It is time, therefore, that the Rhondda Education Committee's age of exemption should be raised, and until it is done, it will be useless to expect any great enthusiasm on their part of the Evening Schools. There is a. great cry in the land just now for the instrument of compulsion in respect to the Evening School attendance.- It is too true, as Alderman Morgan Wil- liams said before the Committee in his evidence, that he was afraid that many parents were still very indifferent as regards their children's education, and that boys often did not receive the en- couragement they-ought to get at home." It is quite well known that in the present age the standard of parental control in many of the Rhondda homes one cannot expect much comfort for any reform from the parents. Once the boys and girls begin to earn, they generally" boss" the situation, because they are allowed to do just as they please. The remedy may come from a reformed within, and this can best be created by more education in the Day School. If it will not come in this way, then let us do as they do it in Scotland—apply legal compulsion as in the Day School. Principal Griffiths' evidence was more. retrograde than that of any other South Wales witness. He showed surprising ignorance for one occupying the position of Principal of one of our University Colleges, of a very elementary er"i y fact when he said that in colliery dis- tricts it would be difficult to raise the age where a child of 12 was a real wage- earning person and an important domestic asset." And again, the Principal thinks very little purpose can be served in Con- tinuation Schools generally. As regards boys," he said, who would enter call- ings in which technical knowledge was not required, it was difficult to see what could be done for them in Continuation Schools. What they wanted was training in discipline, morality and manners, rather than school education." He advo- cated compulsion. He would only sug- gest such lessons as Citizenship for them, for" neither they nor their parents would understand the value of this kind of edu- cation since it was of no immediate bene- fit." We are glad to turn from his obscurantism; to the vigorous, refreshing claims of the Labour witnesses, who, with- out exception, viewed the problem in a broad and generous spirit. They, without exception, recognised that the years between 14 and 17 were the settling years when love of education could be planted, and that the social evils resulting from want of educational care between 14 and 17 were increasing. These were the yeans in which habits were formed, and if boys got into bad habits and bad company at this age, it was most difficult to put them right again. Such and many more argu- ments were the bottom reasons urged by Labour. The better educated the worker, the stronger value would he be as a mem- ber of the community. We trust that parents will see to it. It is a good invest- ment, and, as Alderman Morgan Williams observed, even a poor family could not do better than speculate on the education of their children." Absolutely true, there is a potential power in all of us, but it must have education to draw it out.

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I ___I Rhondda Evening Classes.I

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