EDUCATION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 213, 8 September 1877, Page 4

EDUCATION.

To the Editor of the ' Evening Mail.' Sib, — To the success of our Educational work, the fitness and duties of inspectors are au important consideration.^ |The efficiency of any system will in a great measure depend on the character and suitability of these officers for the right discharge of the important duties devolving upon them. Aa to their fitness, it is of the first consequence that they should be men who have received specißl training, and have undergone such examination as that training implies. The function of the inspector is strictly professional, it is therefore necessary, in his, as in every other professional calling, that ha should have a professional education; and it follows, as the night the day, that where there is a staff of professional men employed, they should he under professional supervision. Had this heeu tbe case in New Zealand, we should have escaped the infliction of some educational reports that now pass as current coin, but from which no real knowledge of the state of the schools can by any possibility be gathered. From the fact that an lu-epector-General is to find a place in our new Education Acf, the importance of this oversight appears to be recognised. I presume his duties will be the general oversight of the professional staff, the review of their work ss ehown by their reports, and periodically to visit the several districts, and thus to leara by actnal inspection the true atate of things. Then, with regard to the position of Inspector : he should by no means be confined to one district. First, because with the moat praiseworthy intention to be impartial and fair, inspectors, like other men being frail mortals, — they come to have their partialities and antipathies, which, more or less, unconsciously give form and color to their reports. So that we find a rosy radiance ever glowing over some schools, while others are found dressed in more sober, if not more sombre hues. While, if by any chance an inspeitor comes to have a real 'down' upon some unfortunate wight, his professional reputation is gone. This is a very Berious matter, when there is no professional head to whom the teacher can appeal. A Board elected indiscriminately, without any reference to educational statue, much less professional kuowledge — however disposed to do justice, are not competent to decide the disputes which generally arise between inspectors and teachers, and wheu the inspector his the ear of the BjarJ, the

chance of I the teachers evaa being heard, is reduced to a minimum. There are further considerations of a more general nature that point to the importance of the transfer of inspectors from district to district. Ist. It ia an advantage to the inspectors themselves; they are afforded a wider range of vision, and thus by being brought into contact with the schools of other districts, with their methods, organisation, classification, and the working of the schools as a whole, their data for comparison and judgement, in short, their professional education is being furthered, and their efficiency increased. Then the advantages to education itself are manifold. We cannot fully appreciate the stimulus given to an Inspector, when heknows that his district in a year or two will be reviewed by a brother professional thus healthy emulation and legitimate rivalry are fostered. In every walk of life mea and their methods b3come stereotyped^and formal, and so they come to lack vitality, and lose the high tone and tension which should ever be fostered in professional work. Then, great advantages accrue to the teachers by having their schools inspected by men with fresh ideas and views, and penchants for giving prominence to certain features of school work and thus by the play of many minds the weakness and defects of the schools as a whole come to be discovered; and so the practical education of the teachers is advaoced. Again it is only the review by differant professional men of the various districts of the colony that will give to a professional head that perfect knowledge of the educational condition of the country which it is essential he should possess, in order to obtain the data upon which an uniform system of public insruction can be built up. This is specially important in New Zealand, where as many diffarent systems as provinces have prevailed. The measure now before the House is simply tentative; it is so mongrel in its features that if New Zealand is to advance educationally, which beyond doubt it will with oiher places, it must soon be replaced. I venture to predict that in all the Australias, a fow years will find all their educational institutions, from the infant school to the university, thrown open, free to all alik*, and so organised that from the day the infant enters the school he will be brought uader a thorough system of education and training, and thus that highest of all wealth, the intellectual wealth of a people, will be fully developed. — I am, &c, Ceeip.