39

E.—lb

English. —In English, under which are included reading and recitation, spelling, writing, and composition, the reading is commonly quite satisfactory, differences in schools lying more in the varying evidences of intelligent treatment than in qualities of fluency or enunciation. In recitation a sufficient number of pieces is nearly always prepared and duly rendered, with a distinction in schools similar to that observed in reading ; but the exercise is oftener than we could wish one to which the kindred term " repetition " is more appropriate, and if the teachers went further afield in making selections from the best poetry available, the tedium of the examination-room would be relieved and the minds and tastes of the pupils benefited. To spelling quite as much attention is generally given as the exercise warrants, and dictation is usually well done. At the earlier stages, word-building methods are followed with more or less practice in irregularly formed words in common use, as illustrated by the reading-books ; in the later stages, only a few teachers at the time of the annual visit had so far anticipated events by attempting any systematic treatment of word-formation. In this feature we hope in time to get away in a large measure from the trammels of the reader, establishing the exercise on a better footing with an independent basis. With the writing of our schools we are not quite satisfied, though probably in a majority of them the writing is good. Copybooks are in general use, and these seldom invite much criticism, but with a fair imitation of the copy too many teachers appear to be content. Too little attention is paid to the sitting position, to the way in which the pen is held and the resulting quality of stroke, and generally too little of the old ambition of making " penmanship " a feature of the school is to be observed. On writing, the practice in drawing has had, we believe, rather an injurious influence than otherwise through essential differences in the instrument employed in each case. In future much more use is to be made of " transcription " in the teaching of writing, and the change is probably an improvement. On the teaching of composition (apart frora grammar) it is difficult to express a general judgment. The practice is regularly and faithfully conducted with varying results. As a rule, much promise is found at the stages represented by Standard 111. and Standard IV., where the conditions are simple ; in the classes above, the result (apart from the question of technical details —agreement, punctuation, &c.) depends not so much on the actual teaching received in the subject itself as on the general intelligence of the pupil, on his home surroundings, and more particularly on the habit of reading acquired. In the lower classes greater attention is now given to oral composition, and pleasing exercises on slates have not unfrequently been received from Second Standard children on a familiar animal or other topic. Oral composition from the earliest stages, we may repeat, is in our view an exercise of great importance, capable of exercising an immense amount of good in giving pupils facility and confidence in the use of language, and if taken in a preliminary way in later exercises, of much assistance in promoting the orderly arrangement of written efforts. From the programme of our schools, grammar as a separate subject now disappears, and if it is commonly understood that grammar in its bearing on composition still holds a no less important position than it ever did, we can bear the loss with equanimity. For several years past a small amount of " full parsing " has been retained in our examination tests, but this has been solely out of deference to the requirements of the syllabus and in the interests of any teachers who might have given much attention to the practice. The simple function of the word, the phrase, the clause, and other features bearing on sentence-structure are, however, on a different footing, and we look to teachers to give us something better under these heads than they have recently been in the habit of doing. Some of the less experienced, interpreting the absence of grammar from the list of subjects as an absence from the scheme of study, have already practically dropped it, and with many the treatment has long been perfunctory. Year by year the grammar of our schools, even in its narrowest aspect—in its bearing on composition —has been getting worse and worse, as children with an increasingly imperfect appreciation of the distinctions involved have gone up in the schools, and we fear much that the newer conditions are not such as to favour a revival in a better form. At the same time we think it right to put in a plea for the much maligned element of English education. For the future it is not our intention to call the composition satisfactory in a school which does not disclose a fairly efficient treatment of that branch which has hitherto gone under a separate name. Any reasonable scheme, however, adapted to the requirements of a class, or class group (made up of two or more standards according to circumstances), we are prepared to accept. Arithmetic. —Like other subjects of the school programme, arithmetic demands in the newer education more realistic treatment than has usually been deemed necessary. Realistic methods are, it may be said, sufficiently general at the earliest stages in our infant departments, where for a long series of years the teaching has followed the method of the analysis of progressively higher numbers on the present approved lines, and it remains only for teachers to apply similar methods to the extended analysis now required of the lower standard classes. Here, however, the practical difficulty immediately presents itself that the method demands a greater share of the teacher's direct attention than can be given in the small school. In the higher classes, particularly in Standard V., the arithmetic done during the past year in working the tests furnished by the Education Department has given us a good deal of trouble. Failure to work the tests satisfactorily in the standard mentioned has been the rule rather than the exception. The cause lies partly in the fact that a new departure has been taken in the stress laid upon particular types of questions, some of them in previous practice reserved for the next-standard work, and partly in the absence of realistic treatment in the teaching, particularly in connection with the metric system. The children of our higher classes have been given no opportunities of acquiring facility in the use of the actual weights and measures ; they have had no training in practical conversion exercises and none in the making of paper or cardboard models to illustrate notions of surface and volume. They have in consequence had no real knowledge of the litre, metre, and kilogram, and when a question involving the size and weight of anything in metrical units has been given, it has failed to