E.—IB

18

slate, asks, "What is this?"— Children: "A slate." Teacher: "How many sides has it?"— Children: "Four." Teacher: "What is its shape?" —Children: "Oblong." Teacher: "How many surfaces has it?"— Children: "Two." Teacher: "For what is it used?"— Children: "To write on." And so on to the end. Now, there is no intellectual faculty brought into play by allowing answering of this sort. Memory and a previous lesson on form will provide the word given as an answer to each question ; but neither observation nor memory will suffice for the following answers: Teacher (holding up a slate) : "What is this?"— Children: "It is a slate." Teacher: "How many sides has it?" —Children: "A slate has four sides and two surfaces." Teacher : "What is its shape?"— Children : "In shape the slate you have is an oblong." Teacher : "For what is the slate used?"— Children: "The slate is used for writing and drawing; it has other uses also." The first method, as here described, requires the exercise of the perceptive faculty only; whilst the latter method of answering requires the exercise of the conceptive faculty, which combines the intellectual with the perceptive faculty. The system of " cutting-out," for training young children in correct form, and referred to by me last year as having been successfully introduced into several schools, is making headway, though very slowly; but good results are promised in several junior departments. If scissors could be provided for the use of pupils, the system of " cutting-out " in connection with drawing would be generally adopted throughout the district. Reading.—l have already expressed the opinion that the children do not get sufficient practice in reading at school, and I am inclined to urge the establishment of a school library for the use of pupils in every district. Six reading-books, containing altogether about eight hundred pages of ordinary reading matter in six years, constitute a very small literary ontfit for boys and girls in this country on their leaving school; and, when this fact becomes fully realised, I think it will be readily conceded that a library is neces ary, if not indispensable, to the efficiency of every wellordered school. The circular on the subject of school libraries that was issued some months ago by the Government has had a beneficial effect upon teachers, and at least three new libraries have been established on the lines suggested by the department. The following schools in my district have each a library for the use of pupils : Ormond, Matawhero, Te Arai, Gisborne, Wairoa, Petane, Meanee, Patangata, Norsewood, Porangah.au, and Woodville. As a subject of instruction reading should be fostered in the lower standards mnch more than it now is. The power to read with intelligence is perhaps the most valuable of all acquirements, and offers more sources of lasting pleasure and profit to children and adults than anything else. In Standards 1., 11., 111., and IV. at least two reading-books should bo prepared during the year, and I should hail with satisfaction a departmental regulation that made this compulsory for all schools. The subjects embraced by them might readily include the whole of the present requirements in geography, history, and lessons on general information. Arithmetic. —This subject receives more attention than reading in the majority of schools, but, as pointed out by me two years ago, success would be much more easily gained by the pupils if teachers gave more time to instruction in mental arithmetic and the thorough preparation of arithmetical tables. Naturally all the higher processes can be illustrated by means of elementary and concrete examples, and these should be frequently given to children as mental tests, for I am fully convinced that mental arithmetic is a most valuable aid to pupils in their after lives, and no efforts should be deemed too great so as to make a school thorough in this branch of work. A special paper in mental arithmetic was set as part of the arithmetic for Standards IV., V., and VI., the tests being limited to the rules in Blackie's Mental Arithmetic, and the average results were encouraging. The style of arithmetic papers sent in by pupils above Standard 111. was not equal to those of previous years. To me it is greatly to be regretted that the decimal system of weights and measures has not been adopted for the colony instead of the cumbrous and antiquated system we now have. Writing varies much in quality in the different schools, but on the whole the average standard results are fairly good. My tests for writing in Standards I. and 11. were given on slates, the copybooks being marked without reference to a qualification for a pass. In Standards 111., IV., and V. the copybooks only were marked for a pass in writing, but in future I propose to set special writing tests on paper for all standards above the second. Vere Foster's books, Palmerston series, are still used in most of the schools; but lately a number of teachers in the Poverty Bay district have adopted the Jackson's Vertical Writing Copybooks, as used in the English Civil Service examinations, and the results have been unusually good. Judging by the progress made during the twelve months the Jackson's copybooks have been in use, it seems to me that a good deal of time will be saved in acquiring a knowledge of writing by their adoption, but I defer a final judgment upon them until after another visit to the schools where they are in use. Dkawing.—As far as the schools have been able to comply with the regulation in this subject, the progress is satisfactory. Freehand and plane geometrical drawing have been taken up in all the schools, but elementary solid geometry has not been attempted anywhere, and model drawing is only taught at present in three places. Geogbaphy is well taught in the lower classes, but in the two highest the results are not so good. The employment of blank maps for testing the pupils in Standards 11., 111., and IV. has done much to foster the growth of intelligent methods in teaching the subject, and I am sorry that the same plan cannot be adopted in my examination of the remaining standards. In many schools mapping continues to be well and carefully taught. I find that the most difficult thing to get done in this subject is the topography of one's own district, with a general knowledge of the geography of New Zealand. Children too often know the rivers of Asia or the lakes of Africa or America much better than they know the rivers and lakes of New Zealand or even of their own district. I am sometimes inclined to think that teachers themselves know very little of the geography of New Zealand, whilst relatively it is the most important country with which they have to deal.