The Evening Star MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1875.

Evening Star, Issue 3940, 11 October 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1875.

Theue are at least two sides to every question. This principle is pretty generally acknowledged, but is seldom made any practical use of. It is our intention, however, to act in accordance with it as far as the question of school inspection and the teachers’ views with regard to it are concerned. In our last article on the subject, an attempt was made to state as clearly as possible what we conceived to be the teachers’ opinions on school inspection ; in this one, endeavor will be made to treat the subject as an inspector might be supposed to treat it. As we did not in the slightest degree mince matters when setting forth one side of the question, so we shall not shrink from slating what it seems to us may be fairly advanced on the other side. It is only just that something of this kind should be done, for the relative positions of teachers arid inspectors are in one respect rather peculiar, If a fight takes place between them, nearly all the hitting will be on one side. In many ways it is in tbs power of the teachers to express their dissatisfaction with an inspector and his inspection, and also to make the effects of that dissatisfaction felt, while the inspector is, by hia position, almost precluded from making any effective reprisals, he his cause ever so good. Besides, even when he can “ show fight,” seeing that it is a case of many against one, every successful blow of his opponents tells with great force ; but even if the inspector succeeds in demolishing one or two oi his assailants, he is scarcely in a better position than he occupied before ; quite enough are still left to worry him almost to death. It is like the old sport of bear-baiting—given one dog to one bear, and the bear would have got on famously ; it was the number of his opponents that made Bruin have such a very rongh time of it. The task we have set before ourselves, however, is a sufficiently difficult one. To aid us in forming an opinion as to the teachers' views on inspectors, we had the advantage of being able to consult Mr Park’s paper and the report of the speeches delivered at the meeting on Saturday last; if we did not by means of these quite succeed in getting an exact mental picture of an inspector as schoolmasters see him, we may yet be sure that we cannot have failed to do so to any very remarkable extent. On the other hand, when we endeavor to get at the inspector’s idea of the average schoolmaster in relation to this matter of inspection, we have absolutely no data to go upon, and are compelled in a great measure to argue the matter out on merely general grounds. We have no means of learning what difficulties the inspector hat to deal with, we can only say that it is reasonable to suppose the average teacher will be actuated by sack and such motives and influences;

and tkat the inspeetor will nacesearily hara to deal with these in such and such a wuy. We suppose, then, that ns a rule when an inspector finds anything amiss in a school, he also finds that this defect is by no means caused by any fault or deficiency on the part of the teacher ; on the contrary, if the thing be a fault, which, in very many cases the teacher will be by no means inclined to admit, it is entirely due to causes quite beyond his control. If children fail to pass his examination, it ia because the questions are too difficult or dodgy, or in a part of the book that they have never gone over, or the children have had the measles, and they have not yet recovered, or the inspector’s manned is too reserved, or the children are afraid of the inspector, and so forth. Now, it is to bo remarked that these excuses may all be made in perfect good faith. The teacher is probably not conscious of the fact, but he is just making unconscious, we might almost say automatic, efforts to a void coming to the conclusion that he has, through partial ignorance or a certain amount of remissness, “ailed ro perform bis duty completely. Now, if an inspector constantly hears excuses of the kind referred to being made, he must be infinitely more stupid than inspectors usually are if he fails to understand exactly what their nature is : when once he understands this, he svill not feel himself bound to pay the slightest attention to them, though, of course, be will listen to them politely. But it will by no means always happen that the proposition of the inspector that such and such a state of things is a defect will meet with assent on the part of the teacher. On the contrary, :t will be often maintained that the thing is just as it was intended to be : the teacher will hold that his mode of doing this particular thing is immensely superior to anything suggested by the inspector. Of course, this sorb of excuse is a mere variety of the species before referred to. Then, again, the inspector would probably say that the proposal to exouiiue. schools piiuoipallv on the work actually done in them was all very well in its way, and would, if adopted, afford him very great ease, and indeed do away with some of the most unpleasant parts of his duty. But he would ask at the same time how

the information thus gained could be made of the slightest use to the public. It might give him a certain impression as to the efficiency or otherwise of a school, but with this sort of examination it would certainly be out of his power to compare one school with another, or one teacher’s work with another’s in any useful way, or in a way that would not be continually open t® and subjected to the gravest suspicions. As it is, the inspector has his instructions and his standards, and he is able to say, with some approach to certainty, what is the position of each particular school with regard to these standards, and so compare them and their teachers one with Lastly, the inspector might say that one of his greatest annoyances in dealing with teachers is the tendency these show to believe that he is going to treat them unfairly. If he takes numerical statistics with regard to s, school, it is immediately assumed that the statistics are going to be used for the purpose of ruining his professional reputation, and so forth ; in short, that his experience of teachers and their ways compels him to believe that they are but little inclined to give him credit for possessing judgment, discretion, or even a sense of fairness. Such, it seems to us, are some of the things that an inspector might fairly say with regard to his i’ebitions to the teachers; at the same time, we do not doubt that if he wore stating his own case he could do it much more effectively than we have been able to do