The Evening Star TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2758, 19 December 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1871.

The List of our public school prize distributions took place on Saturday, when the successful competitors received their well earned trophies at the High School. In past years those rvho professed to doubt the efficiency of our school system, took objection to it on the ground that the public had no guarantee that the education given was thorough, as the periodical examinations were conducted by the masters themselves ; who thus were virtually self-constituted judges of their own work. The speciousness of the objection cannot be denied, but until this year the difficulty was all but insuperable. Unless an efficient inspector of schools had been appointed, who, from his attainments in every department of human learning, was competent to express a well founded opinion upon the modes of instruction and progress of the pupils,'no outside supervision equal to the task was possible. Perhaps not the least difficulty would have been to have found such an admirable Creighton. Year by year adds to this difficulty, for as time rolls on, the vast advances in particular branches of knowledge render special studies necessary. Men engaged in professions, however high they may have stood as scholars at school or college, invariably lose much of what has been acquired when it is not habitually brought into use. A knowledge of principles remains, as well as ef the best way to go about their work ; but what may be likened to the mechanics of learning—the peculiar adaptability of the faculties to any special branch which has lain by almost until ought of for years—is weakened. Practice is requisite to restore them to vigorous action in that direction, and therefore no man likes to be brought into contact with a number of quick-wit-ted youths, who have had the advantage of the best instruction, with every modern discovery of fact and improvement of method, lest having undertaken the task of examiner, he himself should be weighed in the balance and found wanting. The examination papers of the school and college dispense with the necessity for this personal contact. The methods of proof or analysis adopted in the solution of difficult problems, is a more thorough test of it perfect comprehension of the subject than any mere cursory examination. The requirement that such and such questions should be answered within a given time, precludes the opportunity of “coaching,” and the necessity for reaching a certain standard of excellence before becoming entitled to a chance for a prize, really establishes tests of cultivated ability. The use of inspector of such high class schools is to see that the standard is not fixed too low. This has been the fault of our schools at Home, in which the children of the middle class have been educated. The wonder has in fact been that so many, not that so few men of cultivated talent have been raised there. We are not likely to lapse into that fault in Otago. The system of examination adopted at the principal schools of the Province, both girls and boys, prevents that. These periodical tests become marks of pi-o-gress by which successive steps in the • attainment of knowledge may bo traced, ! and this year in the High School, the | efficiency of this system has be -n put to the tost by subjecting the papers themselves to the supervision of men of high attainments in special departments. This should lie sufficient to silence those who have doubted, as well as those who have decried our schools, for they have stood the trial. It has been the fashion, perhaps through want of knowing better, to represent that it was impossible to acquire so good an education firs Colonies as at Home. This illusion ought to have been long dispelled, and would have been had parents themselves beeji i

competent judges in the matter. They ] may now set themselves at rest. We have the testimony of those who stood high in the colleges at Home, that in languages and mathematics the education given is thorough. In Greek, Latin, arithmetic, algebra, and geometry—branches of learning the most difficult to judge of—the testimony of these gentlemen is in the highest degree satisfactory. The favorite objection, therefore, that there has been no efficient inspection, is now removed. The system adopted is proved efficient, and the High School for boys may safely be pronounced the college vestibule. In these observations we must not be supposed to undervalue the Girls’ Provincial School, It is but in its infancy, but of it we have already spoken, Both schools were founded amid opposition and uncertainty : both have had to contend with prejudice, and both are destined to override all opposition and to prove blessings to the Province and the Colony.