ENGLISH LITERATURE IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS. 801 
A PLEA FOR ENGLISH LITERATURE IN 
PRIMARY SCHOOLS. 
By Percy Fritz Rowxanp, B.A., Oxon., Late Lecturer at 
Canterbury College, University of New Zealand. 
[| Abstract. | 
In the culture of the fields with a view to their yielding in 
due season the earth’s kindly fruits, no uniform standard is, 
indeed, attempted. It is admitted as a condition precedent 
that there is good land and land less good—land under any 
given economic conditions suitable for the highest culture ; 
other land, suitable only for humbler uses. But at least 
that amount of culture is given to each kind of land, by 
which the community (so far as is foreseen by the indi- 
viduals to whom the initiative is entrusted by Fors Clavi- 
gera), is likely to reap the fullest benefit. 
Now, of all fields, there is none so rich as that un- 
fathomable marvel of the universe, the human mind. And 
however greatly it differs from all phenomena of the 
creation, rooted as deeply in the spiritual as it is in the 
physical world—it comprises, like the earth, rich soils and 
poor; soils that will only pay for cultivation up to a certain 
point, soils that will repay with more than even Tasmanian 
fertility, the highest culture which can be given. 
A community can never attain the Platonic ideal of 
Justice—each man doing that for which he is best fit—nor 
the Christian ideal of Duty—each individual making the 
best use of his talents—until every child in the State 
receives as much culture as he requires if he is to render 
to the community the most efficient work of which he is 
capable. 
Now, of whatever parts right culture consists—and right 
culture for a carpenter is admittedly different from that 
for a Professor of Latin—it will not generally be denied 
that in many respects the best way of teaching all to think 
and feel, is by teaching them something of what the best 
men and women have thought and felt, set down in the 
best way. The record of a nation’s best thought and 
feeling, set down in the best way, is called its literature. 
And yet to-day, in Australasia, as in other parts of the 
English world, ninety-nine hundredths of the children leave 
school without the slightest attempt having been made to 
give them this most vital part of culture. In secondary 
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