BRIDGE-STREET SCHOOL.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 170, 10 July 1876, Page 2

BRIDGE-STREET SCHOOL.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE « EVENING MAIL.' Sir— l am the subject of a new experience, and write under its inspiration. I have been < ngaged io teaching about eighteen years, and for the first tiuje I have obtained an unsatisfactory report. I can only account for it on the ground that the schools I have hitherto conducted have been subj.ct to examinations whi h were definite and particular in every subje-t, and individual of every chiH, and thnt this last has beeu vague, general, and indeterminate of any regult attained by my labor. With every respect and all the deference due to the official position of the Inspector I beg the privilege of some remarks on the report of my division of Bridge-street School I would say that Ido thia in justice to the boyß now att-nding the schcol more than from any personal feeling. lam content to wait the verdict of time for my own vindication. I feel, however, it is due to the boys to exou-rate them from much of what is implied in the report. I hive had ch»rge of the school eight months, about two of which have been holidays — a time sufficient neither to make nor mar any school. First, let me ask the consideration of your readers to this circum-tance : The Bridgestreet first division has been the model school of the Provu-ce. Its high tone, character, and the advanced attainment of the boys have been the eubj.ctof the most laudatory reports. Accepting the correctness of these reports— and I h*ve neither the right nor the desire to question them in any sense— is it not a pertinent inquiry : How came it to pass, that immediately the presence of the forr.er tnasttr was removed, the whole school assumes an entirely different character, and the boys are found to be utterly unmanageable, and capable of the most outrageous conduct ? The former master left in June, 1875 ; from then to October there were four gentlemen in charge, two of them experienced teachers, the Inspector himself had charge for ,__te wtel.., sod in th. hst place a gentte- j

man, who was not altogether unacquainted wi.h teaching ; and yet, in the short ipace of j three months under this influence, this high | charactered school becomes thoroughly disorganised. What is the explanation ? I venture to submit, that if the reports of the school were of any value, that the immediate change of character suggests a moat interesting psychological inquiry. I commend it to our metaphysicians. I confess it is beyond my powers of ratiocination. The report _aya ;— « This division had become thoroughly disorganised when Mr Price took charge of it. Nor, it must be admitted, has it yet recovered to any appreciable extent under his management from the low condition in which he found it." En passant, is six months sufficient to raise a ''thoroughly disorganized " school in? But this statement is grievously incorrect and unjust to the boya now ia tha school, and I cannot allow it to go forth unchallenged. Whether it refers to the conduct or to the attention that they pay to their stoiies it is equally wrong. When I took charge I met boys most impudeot and insubordiuat?, and, to put it in the mildest form, who indulged in a aau-iness and superciliousness of behaviour that I had never seen approached before by boys, while there wai no work to be got out of them by any means. Now all this bas been completely changed, and the boys attending the -ch.ol at present are as respectful, as obedient, end as docile as any boys I have ever known, _o that to say that the school is now disorganised, or tbe boys in any sense demoralised, is an utter misrepresentation of the one and the other, while I have been gratified exceedingly of late by the laudable ambition which the boys as a whole have been manifesting, and the growing interest they take in their work You must allow me space in your next for some remarks on the state of tho school as to its educational position when I found it, and at present. lam, &c. Wm. Pb-Oh. Nelson, July 8, 1867.