E.—lb

33

if they are satisfactory, the results may very well be left to take care of themselves. It is possible to communicate a considerable amount of information which, though not understood and assimilated, may be stored up in the memory and reproduced in a way when required; but such teaching is not education, and is not likely to be successful in promoting the healthy growth and vigorous action of the mind of a child. Its effects would be, but for the mind's native vitality and self-curative powers, rather to choke and destroy it by plying it with materials ill prepared and ill suited to its nature and capacity In much of the teaching one sees, there is too little if any trading, so to speak, with the knowledge a child has already gained, so as to enable him to reach the unknown through the known. All along from his earliest days the child has been making numerous discoveries for himself, and has come into the possession of much self-acquired knowledge. The teacher that makes most demand on this previous knowledge in the elucidation and instillation of new truths will reap the highest rewards himself, and will confer the greatest and most lasting benefit on his pupils. He will secure the intelligent reception of new impressions, deepen and confirm those already made, and prepare the way for further advances. A teacher in the course of a readinglesson met with the words " smooth," ' notched," and, finding his pupils unable to explain them,_ at once told them in words no simpler instead of illustrating and eliciting their meaning by referring to articles bearing these characteristics, and to those of an opposite nature. Another had to deal with "rill,"' "fadeless bloom," and "fragrance," but made no reference to the rill near the school and to the flowers with which the children were all familiar. During the past year the children in quite a number of schools failed in geography, because, although they could tell glibly enough what a cape, lake, or plain, &c, was, yet they failed completely to recognize such m the school surroundings, or to point out what stood for them on a map. Judging from the character of some of the teaching, and from the casual remarks one hears, " cram " must be considered an important factor in meeting the requirements of the syllabus. The idea is erroneous. "Cram," as I understand it, is the attempt to force into children, by formula, rote, and rule, what they do not understand and cannot therefore assimilate. Such a process is sure'to end more or less in failure, since the aim of the examinations is to defeat it, and to reward teaching that cultivates the intelligence and trains the mind. There is no disguising the fact that the children in our schools have plenty to do, but it is astonishing how much mental food they can beneficially dispose of when it is suitably presented to them. New Zealand children are not subjected to any great hardship in their school course, as they are not compelled to be presented for standard work at any fixed age, and need not begin it until the teacher is satisfied that they are quite fit to do so with a fair prospect of successfully passing up to a higher standard year by year I should not be disposed to advocate the exclusion, from the list of studies prescribed, of any subject except the history of Standard 111. As for the geography of Standard 11., it ought to be a pleasure and pastime for the children rather than a hard lesson. The real weakness is not m the inability of the children to undergo their share of the work, nor in the system itself to any great extent, but exists in the motive-power—in the means for administering it. The teaching staff is neither large enough nor efficient enough. In many country schools the work cannot be fully overtaken without more assistance, and in the town and larger schools much of it has to be relegated to untrained hands, just at that stage too where training and special skill are most needed. The number of experienced and qualified assistants requires to be increased. Of course it will be asked how the expenditure that would necessarily attend an increase in the number and efficiency of the teaching staff is to be met in face of the cry, now somewhat common, that the system is bound to break down under its own weight—that the State cannot bear its educational burdens. There are no solid grounds for despairing of a satisfactory answer, for the people that can afford to spend its millions on what, to say the least of it, is of doubtful utility, will surely not scruple to furnish its thousands for the support of such an all-important matter as education. _ . Failure in school work is often caused by neglecting to make the teaching sufficiently thorough and impressive. Of course all inefficient methods wantthese qualities, but, even where the methods are fairly satisfactory, the instruction is not driven home so as to produce permanent effect In teaching reading, for instance, of twenty teachers who read with taste and expression themselves, probably three-fourths will fail to insist upon their pupils following their model. There is no real difficulty in the way A little determination, tact, and gentle pressure applied would produce the desired effect in even the youngest class. Beading is good in a number of schools, and might be so in all were sufficient effort put forth. In regard to spelling, the practice of writing upon the blackboard all words in which a mistake has been made is becoming more common, but still there are frequent examples of neglect to do this, and of a feeble correction of such words by the teacher himself, without directing the special attention of the whole class to them. In several schools all words in which a mistake has been made are carefully noted down m a book kept for the purpose, and frequent reference made to them during the course of the year. I need not say that the spelling in such schools is accurate. Tactics of a nature suited to the subject in hand require to be constantly used in order to produce a lasting impression. ... Inability or neglect to keep pupils usefully and earnestly employed at desks, or even m class m direct contact with the teacher, is another fertile source of disappointment. Sometimes a teacher is so earnest and absorbed in the lesson he is giving that he becomes blind to the fact that his pupils are quite out of sympathy with him, and yield him but an apparent attention, or none at all. In fact he does most of the work himself, and requires his pupils to do but a very small share of it, whereas the reverse course ought to be followed. When low results are the outcome of an examination it is not uncommon for a teacher to remark that he cannot understand it, that he never worked, harder, and certainly expected a better reward for all his labour and anxiety Satisfactory results will not be gained until he succeeds in securing the hearty co-operation of his pupils, no matter how he himself may labour

5—E Ib.