THE NEGLECTED PARTS OF EDUCATION.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1386, 25 July 1878, Page 3

THE NEGLECTED PARTS OF EDUCATION.

The following is an extract from the annual report of Mr W. C. Hodgson, Inspector of Schools for the Nelson district: —

Although I see no reason to alter an opinion I hare long held, that the true condition of any school can only be imperf ecHy represented by numerical expressions, yet, in deference to an ever-growing demand for statistics, which is not content to accept an examiner's conclusions without seeing every step of the process by which those conclusions have been reached, I have upon this occasion drawn up a far more elaborate table of results than has heretofore been thought necessary. The appetite for details must, indeed, be inordinate, which is not appeased by the array of figures presented in the appendix. I am conscious that, in this report, I have failed to keep altogether clear of what must seem, I fear, to all but the initiated few, the jargon of the standards; and I can only deplore the tendency of the style of examination at present in voguo to reduce inspectors who have not vigor enough to withstand the innovation, to the position of mere recording clerks.

I am, nevertheless, sanguine enough to hope that a reaction will ere long set in, and that the literary element, which just now overshadows everything else, will hereafter receive no more than its fair share of consideration, due weight being given to what is almost left out of sight, the morale of a school. A 3 matters stand now, the muster who succeeds in trnining the winner of a single college scholarship gains a wider and more lasting reputation than the teacher who turnt out a score of lads who take with them habits of manliness, order, and obedience, that may stand them in good stead throughout their lives. It really matters but little to a lad at the time —and it will not matter at all to him a few years hence—whether he passes " Standard VI." during his twelfth or his thirteenth year ; but it greatly concerns both himself and society at large that he should not leave school a sneak, a bully, or a clown. I have in mind two of our schools, models of discipline within the four walls of the>choolroom, where I have observed t hat the boys are habitually quarrelsome and brutal in the playground. And yet the inspector who should ventui'e to make a matter of this kind part of his report would run a serious risk of being set down as a busybody. In educational, as in other matters, the public can, in the long run, get almost anything that it really wants, if only the demand be sufficiently earnest and persistent. And it is not unreasonable to suppose that a steady pressure, on the part not only of school committees, but of parents and others directl* interested in education, might gradually raise the standard of behaviour, as it has already raised the standard, say, of arithmetic and spelling, throughout the district. It will probably be objected that good manners are not so readily measurable as arithmetic, and that in attempting to affix a definite value to what must, after all, be mainly a matter of opinion, a wide opening would be left for caprice or partiality. But, in practice, I apprehend, this difficulty would disappear. All inspectors, and not a few members of school

boards aiid committees, can at once put; u

finger upon such schools within their district as habitually turn out well-bred childro

And if a healthy public opinion on this point were once established, tho rate of pay and promotion of a teacher, as well as the general estimation in which he was held, would be made to depend at least as much I upon the good tone of the scholars as upon • their literary attainments,