The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 1886. The Education Scare.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1256, 5 June 1886, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 1886. The Education Scare.

The report of the Select Committee appointed to enquire into the condition of the Slateschools in the North Canterbury district, was presented to the Hoard ot Education at its meeting on Thursday, When we have said that Mr Allred Saunders is the Chairman and moving spirit of the Committee, it will be almost superfluous to add that the report is of a very comprehensive and sweeping character. 11 there be any truth in the contentions of phrenologists, we are disposed to think that an exponent of the mysterious art would find the organs of combaliveness and destructiveness abnormally developed upon the cranium of the author of the report now before us. Hut whatever may be the value of phrenology as an exact science—and we think it very little—the lact remains that Mr Saunders is much belter at demolition than at construction. However, we do not suppose that his colleagues on this occasion, Messrs A. 11, Cunningham and T. S. Weston, have allowed him to take his own course irrespective of their opinions and tire evidence submitted to the Committee, and the report must be accepted as the deliberate conclusions of three genilemen well adapted, collectively, lor lire task with which they were entrusted by the Hoard. The hist clause of the report is ominously characteristic ot the author. “ The Committee,” we are told, “ have found it only too easy to discover causes lor all the delects complained of. Erorn the Hoard itself down to the pupil teachers, the Education Act has not | been carried out with the completeness required to make it efficient, and evident defects in the conduct ot business by the Hoard have necessarily been reflected downwards, more or less, amongst the officers and pupils m thencharge.” Commenging, very properly, with a candid declaration of the laches of the Hoard, the report points out that whilst that body has never systematically performed executive duties itself, it has never elected a responsible executive from its own members, nor delegated executive duties to anyone else with sufficient distinctness to carry responsibility with the delegation. ft is hardly to much to say that matters have been so contrived that no one feels any direct responsibility for the conduct of the most important portion of the executive business of the Hoard. Such business is, for the most part, nominally performed by the Chairman, and still more nominally approved by the Hoard, but is really transacted by the Secretary, and that without the open, recognised responsibility which should attach to such important executive work. Everyone will admit the 101 ce of these remat ks, and they a.re, by the way, singularly applicable to many other puolic uodies. In this district, particularly, there isadisposition on the part ot Hoad Hoards and similar institutions to reduce the salaries of their executive olliceis to a pittance which must, sooner or later, leave them with very u.efficient representation. Hut lias is oi passant. Ihe inspectors, at least the past inspectors, are very roughly handled by the report. We will give the Committee’s own words. “It would perhaps not be too much to say that most of the mistakes and failures on the part of the Board, have bee

caused by bad inspection and worse reporting by its inspectors. Without able inspection, and faithful fearless reports from its inspectors, the Board is necessarily left in the dark as to the value and success of the teachers they employ. In these important officers, who should be the eyes and ears of the Board, and ought to be looked up to, both by teachers and scholars, as models of conduct and propriety, as well as of intelligence, the Board has overlooked, from year to year, defects and objectionable habits which would not have been tolerated for a week in a I pupil-teacher, and men who dared not

to provoke the retaliation of a single

(-flicor have been employed to keop the Board informed as to any defect in die character or work of 548 teachers. Nothing could be more disheartening to really efficient, hard working teachers than such inspection ; nothing could offer a more effectual screen to the indolent, the incapable, or the intern perate.” With this portion of the revolt we thoroughly concur. Again and again we have urged that the official inspection of our primary schools is next to worthless. The fault does not rest entirely with the inspectors ; they are over-worked and over-hurried, and the system adopted is thoroughly bad. The knowledge and progress of the children are not fairly tested ; nervous children of really sound attainments, are often placed at a disadvantage, and others, I who have more confidence and are fort- 1 unate enough, perhaps by some lucky accident, to he familiar with the half dozen questions propounded by an 1 inspector, secure a favorable report tor an incompetent teacher. We arc again entirely with the report in its condemnation of the employment of an excessive number of pupil teachers. No one familiar with the subject will dispute the statement that in order to obtain the number at present employed, some can didates are accepted who give little promise of being fitted foi|the woik. The account of the Normal School,our model institution, is very disheartening. “The size of the rooms is inconvenient. Class-rooms are wanting. The light is very badly arranged ; and even the rain is not effectually excluded from the interior. The infant department is doing useful work, but in the boys’ school the failure has been very marked. The present Head Master is evidently broken in health, and physically unequal to the arduous duties of his position.” The school buildings throughout the district are condemned. The large expenditure incurred by the Board, in procuring professional advice and supervision, appears not only to have been thrown away, but also to have led to great waste in a succession of costly experiments and mistakes, which might have been avoided under a less prelenlious system, by the simple adoption or adaptation of plans that were not experiments. The extension of the syllabus also receives some adverse criticism, and, the Committee very, sensibly observe, this subject requires to be considered in connection with the fact that a great majority of the children taught in the Board schools leave school at a very early age, and that early removal and intermittent attendance are likely to increase with the less flourishing financial conditions of the parents, which has now become so general. The space at our disposal this evening will not permit us to deal at any length with the practical reforms suggested by the Committee, but we may summarise them as follows :—(1) The assumption of greater responsibility by members of the Board (2) more direct control of teachers by the Board (o) closer inspection and more detailed reports (4) greater care in making appointments ; the School Committees to receive more assistance from the Board in the appointment of their teachers, but without depriving them of the fullest freedom of choice as between really competent teachers (5) the reduction of the number of pupil teachers, to be followed by an increase in the number of female teachers (6) more attention to the teaching of elementary subjects, and (7) occasional inspection by members of the Board. In conclusion, while regretting the unsatisfactory character of the report, we must compliment the members of the Committee upon the thorough and methodical manner in which they have performed their task. We trust the reliable information submitted to the Board will enable that body to effect a speedy and salutary reform in the education system of the district.