EDUCATION IN NEW SOUTH WALES AND VICTORIA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5156, 1 October 1877, Page 3

EDUCATION IN NEW SOUTH WALES AND VICTORIA.

The want of suitable school-books appears to have been satisfactorily met by the Council of: Education of New South Wales, who have succeeded in obtaining a set of books specially adapted for schools in Australia. The & Si. Herald supplies the following information on this subject:—Some of the new books are actually in use, and as soon as the remainder have been received from the publishers, they also will be distributed to the schools, and the use o' the Irish National school-books will then cease. The new books are being published by Messrs. W. Collins, Son, and Co,, of London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Sydney, under a contract entered into with the firm by the Council of Education, and from an examination of copies of the advanced reading-books, which have been handed to us, we are in a position to say that the contents of the books are, as a whole, excellent; and that, although they are in some respects capable of improvement, yet it must be admitted they are far superior to the books hitherto in use. . . . Besides the usual miscellaneous selection of articles for school readiug, there are a great many lessons upon Australian subjects, particularly in regard to Australian geography and exploration; and the books contain a number of well-executed engravings representing the Australian capitals, Australian explorers, and Australian birds and animals. These have been done under the supervision of Australian editors, and were submitted to the Council of Education for their approval before being published. Then there are admirable lessons on health and the physiology of the human body. In the council’s report for 1876, which was sent in to the Government on the 30th April, 1877, there is a paragraph upon the supply of school books, and from that paragraph it appears that the Messrs. . Collins first submitted to the council their series of “ Progressive Readers,” which are extensively used in the primary schools in the mother-country ; aud that after lengthened inquiry and mature deliberatiou, the council resolved to adopt the books, provided they were recast to such an extent ,as to fit them for use in Australian schools. To this condition the Messrs. Collins agreed, and the contract was then entered into with them for the supply of the revised books for a period of five years. It was in the higher or more advanced books of the National School series that the want of lessons upon Australian subjects was chiefly felt, and the publishers were urged to supply these higher reading books first. These have been received in quantity, and with some of the primers or first reading books, are being supplied to the schools. Experience is being gathered in Victoria which may be useful to us some day, of how the payment by results system works in the Education Department in that colony. The rule, it seems (says the Argus) is that every scholar must be satisfactorily educated up to the standard of the class in which he is presented by the teacher; that is to say, he must be proficient in the studies of the class which be has last left, and no less than one-third of the teacher’s salary depends upon the issue. Thus the teacher is tempted to strain every nerve to obtain a high percentage, and some of them, it appears, notoriously set their programme of studies aside as the examination day draws near, and each class is persistently engaged in furbishing up the work of the class .below. The anxiety to obtain, high percentages also leads to cramming, and amusing instances are given of lessons learned by rote in parrot fashion. In one class the sell-'lavs could tell the latitude and longitude of hundreds of places, but they could not say what latitude or longtitude was. Another class was perfect in capes and gulfs the wide world over, but it had not come to the isthmus and island page, and knew nothing of the whereabouts of either Suez or New Zealand. A sixth class could eloquently declaim Johnson’s far-famed description of Charles XII. in the “Vanity of Human Wishes,” and was asked to explain the line, “No joys to him pacific sceptres yield.” The following are some of the written answers given:—“ War on the Pacific gave him no pleasure ; he wanted to go to war on land ;” “That the kings of America did not give him any satisfaction ;” “ That if he gained the Pacific it would not yield him any more joy.” Similarly, “ The Cape of Good Hope was doubled," was thus explained by one bright youth—“ It was made twice as large as before.” Facta like these are quoted as evidence of “ cram.” They support the view taken by Mo Philp, Inspector of Ballarat District No. 2, that “ undue anxiety to obtain high percentages has a tendency to induce teachers to resort to the excessive use of mechanical arts in teaching, and limits the instruction to what is required to gain them.”