H. J. DEL M. MAHON.]

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tion. Notable cases are those of Mr, W. F. Ward, of Wellington College; Mr. Alpers, of Christchurch; and Mr. Macalister, of Invercargill; and there are many- others. As to the qualifications of a teacher in a secondary school, he must be a man of refinement and ability, a man capable of exercising a good influence on the pupils, he must put his w*hole soul into his work, and he must by reading keep himself up to date .in knowledge of educational methods. It seems to me that those qualifications ought to demand better remuneration. Professor Michael Sadler, one of the best-known English educationists, has recently asserted that the minimum salary of a secondaryschool teacher in his prime should be £300 a year. When we take the cost of living into consideration, that would mean £400 in New Zealand. I might bring out this point by referring to the better prospects of teachers in Germany, for example. There has recently been published by the Secondary School Teachers' Association in England a report giving an account of the conditions of employment in England and abroad. The report gives tables showing the prospects of teachers in the various German States. To take Prussia for example : The initial salary- is £135, and it rises by yearly increments until in his twenty-second year of service the assistant in a secondary school receives £360 per annum plus a rent-allowance varying from £60 to £28, thus making the total a least £388. If you take the cost of living into consideration it would mean that in New ZealaiuLwe should look forward to the prospect of at least £500 to be on an equal footing with them. In Hamburg the initial salary is £200, and it rises by regular increments to £450, the maximum being reached after twenty-one years' service. Not only is it better in the amount of actual remuneration, but the pension conditions are on a much more liberal scale. 1. will take the same States, but the conditions in most of the other States are very similar. In Prussia the maximum pension is 75 per cent., which is reached after forty years' service. The allowance to the widow is 40 per cent, of the salary. 3. Mr. Davidson.] Average salary or retiring salary?—lt does not say. Mr. Hogben: It means average salary. Witness: The alhnvance to orphans who have lost one parent is 20 per cent., together with the widow's allowance. In the case of orphans who have lost both parents, the allowance is 30 per cent, of the salary. But the allowance to widows and orphans together must not exceed what would be the father's pension. I think that when we take those facts into consideration it is clear that the status of the New Zealand secondary-school teacher is not nearly as good as that of the teacher in Germany. The next point I would like to emphasize is the size of the classes in the secondary school. In the German school —and the same conditions obtain in most of the English schools—the number of pupils in a class averages from twenty to twenty-five. The teachers in secondary schools work from eighteen to twenty-four hours a week. A master whose work is oral, and of a trying character, seldom works more than eighteen hours a week, and as the school is open for six days in the week he averages from three to three and one-third hours per day. Perhaps a better idea will be obtained from a specific example. In a school of 300 there will be twelve classes with an average of twenty-five to a class. Each class works about twelve hours a week. For the twelve classes there will be 360 hours of instruction. That was the principle explained to me of the staffing of a German school, and I have recent reports bearing out that statement. I noticed when I was in England in 1906 that in some of the higher elementary schools the staffing was on a liberal scale. In Hornsey School, one of the higher elementary schools, there were 278 pupils. The staff consisted of the headmaster and fourteen assistants, and each of the assistants taught from twenty to twenty-two hours a week. The next point I wish to dwell upon is the curriculum in secondary schools. It seems to me from my experience that there should be a differentiation in the syllabus—that, for example, all pupils should not be required to take Latin. My experience is that only the very best boys that come to the secondary schools profit by the study of Latin. It is not likely to be of much intellectual value or of much value from the point of view of culture unless the boy at the end of his career can read the Latin classics as he would read the English classics. The number of boys who can do that is comparatively small. It seems to me that, in the case of the pupils who come merely on a certificate of proficiency, the time would be better spent in teaching only one modern language —say, French —and that the time devoted to Latin should be devoted to gaining a higher standard of proficiency in the mother-tongue and to manual work taught on a rational basis so as to co-ordinate it in a great measure with the other subjects in the school. When I was at Hornsey I was impressed" by the way in which manual work was taught. It was explained to me by' Mr. J. C. Hudson, a man of great culture and great enthusiasm for his work. He maintained in conversation with me that only such work should be undertaken in wood and metal as would develop the originality and appeal to the emotions of the pupils, and at the same time co-ordinate with the other subjects in the work of the school. He made it clear to me that at the earlier stages the children were encouraged to modify their own designs. He showed a number of designs of knife and blouse boards that had been modified by the pupils. They had made models to illustrate the way in which the school was ventilated, and others to illustrate the history of locomotion. Another set of models dealt with cave, tent, and lake dwellings; and a model of the Pantheon at Rome gave the pupils a conception of the forms of architecture. In this way woodwork and metal work can be co-ordinated with history and drawing and science. They may be made a real medium of culture, and have more than the benefits claimed for them as second-school subjects by Professor William James, who says, " Labora-tory-work and shop-work engender a habit of observation and a knowledge of the difference between accuracy and vagueness and an insight into nature's complexity and into the inadequacy of all abstract verbal accounts of real phenomena, which, once brought into the mind, remain there as lifelong possessions. They give honesty, for when you express yourself by making things and not by using words it becomes impossible to dissimulate your vagueness or ignorance hy ambiguity. They beget a habit of self-reliance; they keep the interest and attention always cheerfully engaged, and reduce the teacher's disciplinary functions to a minimum." If for a very large number such