The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, JULY 28, 1874.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 177, 28 July 1874, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, JULY 28, 1874.

We have carefully perused the annual report of the Inspector of Schools which waa published as a supplement to the Evening Mail on Saturday lost, and while we fiud much io it that calls for congratulation, wo cannot shut our pyes to the fact that some of Mr Hodgson's remarks point lo a slate of things that should not he suffered to exist much longer. The large number of schools (fifty-six) that hove been established by the Board shows that the advantages of our educational system are not confined to a few favored localities, but that they are widespread, and can be participated in by almost every dietrict in the province, and at the same lime it is satisfactory to find that tho people appreciate the facilities efforde*. them for educating their children, the number of those attending the Government schools showing a perceptible increase upon that of last year. Still, however, we gather from the report that the pupils continue to be removed from school at too early an age. It is true that tbe Inspector is able to contradict the statement that the children leave school at an earlier age tban formerly, but there is something lamentable in the fact that he feels himself justified in informing ihe Board in terms almost congratulatory that " the number of scholars over twelve is both relatively and actually larger than it has ever been before." Are we to infer from this tbat, the system is to be considered aa working well if a small proportion of little ones above twelve years of age are to be found continuing their studies? Surely it was not to such poor results that the .miners of our Education Act looked forward. They must have anticipated something more than this, and would , scarcely have felt satisfied had they been assured that their efforts in the direction of educating the rising generation were to lead to nothing more than their being taught up to the ago at which they would be just beginning to understand and to appreciate what they had learned, nnd then being taken away from their schooling and suffered to lose the little knowledge tbey had acquired. Parents can scarcely reaiiso the injury they nre inflictiug upon their offspring in removing them from school teaching and school discipline at so tender an age. That portion of the report which comes under the head " School and Class K eg iaters— Quarterly Returns," we caocot allow to pass unnoticed. It appears that instructions have been given by the Board that registers shall be neatly and carefully kept, and returns regularly made. To what extent these instructions have been carried ont the Inspector tells us as follows : — " Few of these important documents, upon the accuracy of which the income of many of our teachers largely depends, are kept with such an amount of neatness as would be considered indispensable in any respectable tradesman's books. The quarterly returns are too often made out in the same perfunctory fashion. Although I have taken great pains to make these papers as simple as possible, no description of negligence has been left untried by teachers." * * * * * And again : — "Nor do I find that sufficient attention is paid to the reasonable request that appears on the face of the returns, " that they should be forwarded to the Inspector as soon as possible after the close of each quarter" Four or fire weeks, instead of as many days, frequently elapse before returns reach me, not from the most distant parts of the Province, but from schools iv close proximity to the town ol Nelson. For this plain neglect little or no apology i. usually offered." When the injunctions of the Board are so completely ignored by the officers of the department, we are not at all Burprised to find complaints of laxity of discipline in some of the schools. Those who refuse obedience to their superiors can scarcely be expected to be very strict in exacting it from those placed under tbeir charge. We are not going to follow Mr Hodgson through his detailed report of the state of the various schools of the province, but there i 3 one point to which we would refer, since we are so entirely at one with him in the remarks he has thought it necessary to make. Speaking of the examinations of country schools by amateurs, and of the reports they furnish of the results of those examinations, he says :— "It appears to me that the duty of an examiner for prizee is confined to ascertaining the relative merits of the scholars in each class, and that when he bo far oversteps this dnty as to warmly commend the school that he has just examined, or to compare it favorably, even by implication, with other Bchools, he is not acting wisely. So far as his report coincides, in this respect, with that of the Inspector, it is superfluous— so far as it differs irom that report, it is mischievous. However apt «nd painstaking an amateur examiner may be, he cannot have the facilities of comparison enjoyei by one whose usual business it is to comp ire and examine. Nor can an Inspector, writing soberly, aud under the weight ot official responsibility, pretend to rival the glowing eulogies passed by those who are fettered by no such restraints. To tin; former, therefore, is too frequently lelt only the invidious task of presenting matters in their true light— a task that occasionally involves the infliction of pain on respectable but over praised mediocrity." In this matter we would go much further than the Inspector. We think that the Board should not only set its face against the publication of reports

by unofficial examiners, but that ir, should positively refuse to allow a school to be examined by anyone a Local Committee may choose to select for the purpose; in other, words, that no examination of a Government school should be permitted except by thoso who have been approved ot by the Inspector. Very serious mischief may be done by an incompetent examiner, and that such hove occasionally undertaken the task, we have reason to know full well, reports having been sent to us for publi. cation in which we havo bad to make many corrections in the spelling and grammar before they were fit to appear in print. Of what value the reports of examinations conducted by the writers of such documents could possibly be, we cannot fail to see. What an amount of harm tbey might do is more easily understood. We are very glad indeed that Mr Hodgson has touched upon the subject, aod trust that the Board will deem hia remarks, and, we may say. our own, worthy of their gravest consideration,