E.—lβ

30

thinking goes back into representation and this again into perception." The teacher, in his dealings with the child, need not have these thoughts in his immediate consciousness, but if they form the background to his mental working he will sympathize with much that seems erratic in youth, and as the result be a better teacher. He will learn to guide the erratic impulse aright. Youth is quick to intuit sympathy. A teacher ignorant of these things is like him who winds a watch the wrong way and breaks all the teeth in the operation. Thereafter the winding may be continued without difficulty ; the watch is passive in the operator's hands, its initiative and individuality, as it'were, are gone. The good teacher is not content with the drudgery of the three Rs. He approaches his work with the creative feeling of the artist: here is not an animal to be fed and clothed ; here is a spirit to be made, a will to be fashioned, an original faculty to be fostered. To him, the schoolroom is no dull chamber of pain and horror. In the kaleidoscope of youth he sees the rich splendour of the aurora. He will not be a worse teacher because he has imagination. He uses his imagination to interpret childhood, and so becomes its readily accepted guide and philosopher. He will not blindly teach each day's appointed portion. He will search after the reasons for cultivating the studies included in the school course. Like the many-chambered nautilus such a teacher goes forward into temples still more vast. We are passing slowly but perceptibly along the new lines —increased invention in brush drawing (luring the young mind out to express itself), more attention to nature-study—a greater effort to take the child out of the merely receptive attitude and teach him to look and think and act. Reading.—Speech and singing are nearly allied to each other. We read somewhere that speech is a fine art and should be taught as such to give pleasure by distinctness and good intonation. The ancients treated oral speech with great reverence. In the German people's schools practice in oral expression is treated as an integral part of the instruction in reading. When a satisfactory degree of facility is accompanied by clearness of enunciation, as is generally the case with the reading in Marlborough, it were well to try to add a pleasantness of tone —the grace that attracts. In this way reading becomes the vehicle of a cultured expression—an end in itself. The phrasal accent is an important means of avoiding monotony. Some schools have not yet two reading-books in use with each standaid. In one or two schools the difficulty with "h " was very observable in reading, in dictation, and in ordinary conversation. It is important that this defect should be overcome early, otherwise the error will harden in the child's ear. Any teacher who permits a child to issue from his school with this defect pronounced has done that child an injury and not earned his salary. Considerable amounts have been spent in school libraries during 1905. The Board gives a subsidy of £1 for £1 on money raised for expenditure on books. The libraries thus formed should foster the love of reading and enable the child to acquire increased facility in the art. Sometimes a child comes up for promotion although unable to read from its book without stopping now and again to spell a word. That child needs more practice before promotion. Spelling.—The tendency to correlate reading, spelling, and composition is increasing. The series of books called " Arnold's Language Lessons " is recommended to the teacher in search of suggestions. There is need for increased effort in dealing with this subject. Nothing but hard work — the correction of errors in composition and dictation, the registering of the errors and frequent recapitulation, together with instruction on observed uniformities—can produce the best results. To attain even good results one must be persistent in tracing out and eradicating error. Writing has impioved in many of the schools. The production of samples from schools that have done well is better than much exhortation. A suitable series of copybooks with business forms for Standard IV and upwards is still in request. Where the forms are not in the copybook it is necessary to give them by way of transcription. The exercises containing this transcription should be preserved for inspection. Composition.—The essays showed a tendency to greater fluency and a more picturesque treatment of the subject dealt with. They frequently gave evidence of considerable and accurate observation of nature. In so far, however, as the tests employed dealt with grammar the results were disappointing, the very limited requirements under that head being rarely met. It is important that, notwithstanding the claims of scientific subjects for attention, the study of grammar should not be neglected. Dr. Harris, Commissioner for Education in the United States, in one of his monographs, puts the case for some teaching of grammar very forcibly. " The mind is always engaged in predicating something of something, always modifying something by something, and the categories of the mental operation are the categories of grammar, and appear as parts of speech. The child, by the study of grammar, gets some practice in the use of these categories, and acquires unconsciously a power of analysis of thoughts, motives, feelings, which is of the most practical character." The teacher of the primary school is largely engaged in faculty training, and the drill indicated above is an essential complement of nature-study—i.e., of that species of training which results, in an extreme case, in the skilled observation of the Australian black tracker. The latter always goes from a fact to the immediately contiguous fact, and does not attain that broad generalisation to which grammar early accustoms the young mind. It is therefore very important that the portion of grammar still contained, in the syllabus should be thoroughly mastered. This can easily be done without giving an undue amount of time to the subject. During the year 1905 specimens of examination questions issued by the Department were circulated, and enabled the teachers to do better work with sentence-building. In the correlation of reading and composition much may still be done, especially in the way of using new words in sentences of the pupils' own construction. The attention of the teachers is also drawn to the requirements under the head " Word-building " for Standards V and VI. Oral composition requires more adequate treatment in Standards I and 11. Although a considerable number of epistles were despatched in connection with the London School Board's letter scheme, only one pupil has had the opportunity to reply to a letter received. lam afraid that the long period elapsing between despatch and receipt of letters will chill the enthusiasm of very young people.