E.—l2.

B. CAMPBELL.]

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certain portions of the school? —That is so. The school may not be strictly overcrowded, but only overcrowded in the infants' department, while Standards IV, V, and VI may have plenty of room. 24. With regard to the examination of teachers, is there any difficulty in this district in getting teachers to go to the backblocks districts?— There is usually a great reluctance. Most people prefer to live in the towns or in the immediate vicinity of the towns. For distant places application's are not numerous. 25. Are not positions in backblocks schools largely filled by uncertificated teachers? —I presume so. 26. Will not an uncertificated teacher going into a backblocks school look to the obtaining of a certificate as a means of release from that position? —If he obtains a higher certificate he will certainly have a greater chance of removal. 27. Then, if it is made more difficult for him to obtain a certificate, will not the difficulty of getting teachers to take those positions be increased?-—lt will. 28. You can see no objection to allowing a teacher to take his D certificate in three sections? — None whatever. 29. Do you think that there would be a gain?—l do. 30. Can you tell us how the proposed regulations were received by the backblocks teachers in this district? —I can only say that the matter was discussed at a large meeting of teachers in which 1 presume backblocks teachers were represented, and the meeting was unanimous in its desire to get that particular regulation altered. 31. Mr. Kirk.] Will you define what "young children" means in recommendation 7b?— Children up to the age of fourteen. 32. At what age do children usually leave the primary schools?— Roughly, at about fourteen. 33. So that this recommendation means that mathematical geography should be entirelyeliminated from the syllabus?—l believe so. 34. Will you give us your idea of what "mathematical geography" is? —1 simply take the word "mathematical" —which may perhaps be loosely applied—from the syllabus. I refer to such matters as the approximately stable position of the earth's axis, in which the revolution of the earth round the sun is taught from observation of the stars. 35. Do you think that that should be eliminated? —I do. 36. Is not that a most fundamental principle of nature-study?— When the syllabus first appeared the teachers engaged in teaching this work in the Auckland District made a very systematic and earnest attempt to teach the different portions of Bin toto; omitting nothing, and made an earnest attempt to teach all these matters such as were suggested in the syllabus—that is, not dogmatically, but from the observation of the stars. My own experience agrees with the experience of all other teachers I have conversed with, and our opinion is that the matter required from the children is too difficult for them. 37. But bow can you teach nature-study well without teaching the effect the sun, moon, and stars have? —One of the difficulties that differentiates this subject from ordinary study is that practically the observation was to be made by the children when they were not in the presence of the teacher. It was to be done at night after sunset. We had no guarantee that the children were taking these observations except by questioning them on the following day as to what they observed. That I believe led to a certain amount of attempted deception. 38. Surely that could be readily ascertained? —It might be. 39. Was it not rather the fact that this mathematical geography should be taught from the primary standard right through the standards up to Standard VI, and that when the more difficult portions of mathematical geography came to be reached in Standard VI, it would be much more easily acquired by the children because of the teaching they had had in the primarystandards? —It would be easier, undoubtedly. 40. Mathematical geography deals alsa with the drawing of maps, 1 suppose?—l do not know if you would call that mathematical geography. We have no objection to the drawing of maps. 41. Would you not call the drawing of maps part of mathematical geography? —Certainly not, so far as this regulation is concerned. 42. Do you think the drawing of maps should be eliminated from the syllabus?—l do not. 43. Does the Institute really lay great stress upon this? I have read this regulation through, and it seems to me that if it were eliminated, and if teaching of the subject were eliminated, there would be a most awful absence of teaching of fundamental principles? —If you take the matter of the cause of the seasons and wish to teach that it may appear a simple matter well within the scope of the intelligence of children of thirteen and fourteen years of age, but we do not find it so. A class might be taught in this way : that " the cause of the seasons is the revolution of the earth round the sun taken in connection with the slope of the axis," but there are so many things in that statement which a child must previously understand, and understand very clearly, or the answer is of no use whatever. The revolution of the earth round the sun he can understand. As to the slope of the axis, he must previously have learned what the axis is. The slope of the axis may be taught dogmatically to him, or he may be taught by observation. The slope of the axis is an extremely difficult thing to teach by observation. It slopes a certain way to a certain number of degrees. This is supposed to be taught experimentally by observation. He can be taught what the orbit is, but to teach what the plane of the orbit is is rather more difficult. When you have all these difficulties, they amount to a considerable difficulty to a child of fourteen. 41. But you and I have gone through it; you were taught mathematical geography as a child, were you not?—l can quite admit —taking any ordinary class in Standard Vl—that we have a certain proportion of the scholars, but a minority, who can understand these things with ordinary intelligent teaching very well, but I am talking of the bulk of the class, and it is my experience, and the experience of the teachers I represent, that for the bulk of any ordinary Standard VI that particular lesson is too difficult.