THE VICTORIAN EDUCATION REPORT.
In the popart of the Victorian S«hool Inspectors recently printed in conjunction with the annual report, there are some interesting points of view suggested. We select the following extracts In regard to the sohool of a female teacher, one inspector observes :
-—“lt will doubtless be some time before committees of small country schools get to understand that it is better to have a good female teacher in charge of their school's than an indifferent male teacher. Yet the fact that women, who had been trained as toacheis, answer when placed in char gc of small schools better than such men as can bo obtained for the salary offered, is the universal experience of all places in which the experiment has been made. In the United States, and in Canada, the experiment has long since been recpgrffaed as successful. In England many the country schools are now pufrusted to women, and I liml in the last Provincial Council report that the English inspectors speak highly of the experiment.” Another inspector, referring to the local persecutions teachers sometimes have to endure, says “The origin of such hostilities is frequently traceable to an abrupt—but possibly truthful—ing the quality of some committeeman’s beer, or groceries, c ; r,_ perhaps, sermons. The object of the strife is definite—to starve out the offending teacher. This is silently and gradually brought about by withdrawing a sufficient number of children, whose parents sympathise with the reformer, to reduce the average below the limit fixed by the
The period required for maturing this il mthropic purpose varies from two to six months, during which tho absentee chilclreu arc usually set to redevt lope the ‘ arboreal habits’ of their ancestry by running wild in the bush.” Describing the shifts sometimes resorted to in rural schools, he states “At North Coropo the difficulty of procuring a map was cleverly met by suspending from one of the smoke-stained rafters a large pumpkin, the rind of which had been scraped so as to represent the oceans of the world.” In reference In the occasional unsuitableness of the methods of teaching, Mr Brodribb remarks : “ I may give an illustration of this from a book often used in our schools, ‘ Young’slnfantManual.’ Ecgardless of the maxim that lessons should bo adapted to the learners’ capacity, directions are there given for explaining the following matters to 'infads (!) ‘acute angles,’ ‘isosceles triangle,’ ‘ trapezium,’ ‘tetrahedron,’ ‘ spheriod,’ ‘ conscience,’ hope,’ ! Some years back, the python at the Zoological Gardens in Loudon swallowed his blanket, but vainly endeavored to make a meal of it. I would commend this story of the python to those teachers who would give infants a lesson on the trapezium, or who would seek to wedge into their unopened intellects the abstract idea of conscience,”
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Evening Star, Issue 2934, 15 July 1872, Page 3
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460THE VICTORIAN EDUCATION REPORT. Evening Star, Issue 2934, 15 July 1872, Page 3
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