The Evening Star SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1875.

Evening Star, Issue 3731, 6 February 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1875.

Now that Otago is in earnest in establishing a model school for training teachers, it is well that correct notions of the nature of the work we are about to enter upon should be adopted. In most of our institutions we aim at excellence, but too often fail to attain it through not having made ourselves acquainted with the best methods of going about our work. The ‘Fortnightly Review ’ for September contains a well written article on the subject. It shows how crude the notions entertained on education are at Home, and how much has been left to chance that ought to have been under the direction of intelligence. The writer, Mr William Jolly, asserts thatEducation is a science having principles as philosophic and exact as other sciences, discoverable only by true scientific methods, and an art which is the practical application of those principles, and which requires as efficient and careful preparatory training for its students as any other.

Mr Jolly points to the neglect of both the science and the art in Great Britain, and especially in England. He says:— But it has been, and is still asserted by many, not a few of whom are teachers, that experience is sufficient to give a teacher all the art he requires, provided that he possesses the requisite knowledge. But what do such assertions imply? They imply that, in this one profession, confessedly one of the most difficult on earth, knowledge is wisdom; that the possession of the educational sword imparts the art of skilful fence, and that the gift of the educational scalpel makes the skilled pedagogic surgeon. ****** For shoemaking or house-building, for the management of a ship or a locomotive engine, a long apprenticeship is needful. Is it, then, that the unfolding of a human being, in body and mind, is so comparatively a simple process that anyone may superintend and regulate it without any preparation whatever ? If not, if the process is, with one exception, more complex than any in nature, and the task of administering to it one of surpassing difficulty, is it not madness to make no provision for such a task! In these observations the nature of the work we have undertaken in establishing a normal school is set before us : it is to train a body of teachers so as to render them skilful in the art of teaching. Mr Jolly maintains that, “as a profession,” nothing has been done at Home for training teachers. This broad assertion is, however, afterwards modified by him as follows : Divinity, medicine, and law have had in the Universities their own classes, in which a preparatory training course, under careful superintendence, must bo traversed by the future clergyman, doctor, and lawyer. For education, what preparatory training has been provided has been most partial and inadequate, of insufficient status, and quite incommensurate with the needs of the profession. _ The higher class of teachers have had no training whatever in the science and art of teaching. *** . * * The lower members of the profession have left the district schools, in which they have received all they know, for the outlying schools in which they now toil. The middle members of the profession alone have had provided for them any means of professional training in the normal schools. The remedy Mr Jolly proposes for this state of things, pronounced by the ‘ Scotsman’ to be “ almost a scandal,” is two-fold, but mainly he would have a Chair of Education in each University. Truly viewed, this subject is the science of the coTHUiuTiicutioTi of ideas , to whomsoever addressed ; whether from the bema or the bench, the pulpit, or the bar, the platform, or the noer of the House of Commons.

We need not follow Mr Jolly through the whole of his argument. Perhaps in Otago we have not sufficiently realised the importance of the subject to appoint a chair in our University devoted to the Science of Education. Most probably we shall rest content with the division of labor traditionally established in the curriculum of University studies, until roused more fully to the necessity for training artists as well as scientists. Whoever reflects on the defects discovered in our educational system, must be impressed with the fact that they have arisen more through the adoption of imperfect or tentative efforts to teach, than through insufficient knowledge on the part of the teachers. What we call “tact” in teaching, is the perception by a teacher of the best and readiest methods of conveying knowledge, and is not very, commonly associated with the highest scholastic attainments. Tact leads a teacher to think, speak, and illustrate in language adapted to the comprehension of his pupils, and is far more common a gift with women than men. Mr Jolly considers women, as teachers, are u certain very soon to become much more numerous and important than they have been.” We believe so too, but even they, notwithstanding their almost intuitive perception of the easiest method of imparting knowledge, will bo all tho better for being trained in teaching as an art. Mr Jolly thinks they should be trained specially “ in subjects peculiar to themselves, such as infant school work, industrial work, domestic economy, instrumental music, and others.” Very shortly a master must be appointed to the Normal j School, and a more important appoint I ment we do not know. His influence '

for good will be practically Colonial,! for teachers trained there will be \ sought for in every Province. We have j therefore drawn attention to the subject I with the hope that no mistake will be 1 made by the Education Board. They 1 may find hundreds who possess science, I but not even tens who have reduced j education to an art.