E.—l2.

102

[h. a. c. milnes.

than is available under the official system. Ihe two points I wish to make are—(l) that the salaries of the junior teachers in the normal schools should be increased, and (2) that latitude shduld be given to the Boards in the matter of providing practice for the students. The next point, which is partly connected with these, is that there are a great number of uncertificated and. incompetent teachers in the small backblocks schools. It lias been brought under my notice *ti this Way : a student has applied to enter the Training College, and has failed in his Matriculation or partial D Examination, which had he passed would have allowed him to enter-the college. Having failed in that examination he is unable to enter a training college, and yet so short of teachers is the Board that he can get an appointment as a teacher of a backblocks school or as assistant in a town school at £90 a year. It seems to me that is an unfortunate position. I am not blaming anybody; it is simply because there are not enough teachers to take up these positions. I would suggest that it might be a good thing to see if something could not be done in the way of importing English teachers. Last year a number of the training colleges were overstocked in England, and many of the students could not find appointments in schools, so many of them had to go into offices and do ordinary work. These were trained teachers of good qualifications, and I,am quite sure that if their fares were paid many of them would be willing to come out here for the experience and wider outlook which the visit would give them. They need not stay permanently; the)* need only stay until such time as teachers could be trained in sufficient numbers in the Dominion to supply the vacancies. The next point is that secondary teachers should be trained. That is brought home to me particularly at times by the students. All our students come from the secondary schools, and their criticism of the secondary schools, speaking generally, is that the teachers hear the lessons, particularly the home lessons; but that they do not teach. The students of the secondary schools are very largely left to themselves, but they are set home lessons in great quantity, and the teachers' work is chiefly to test this work, and not so much to teach. Of course, I do not know if that is a fair criticism, but that was told to me by students recently. I would suggest, if that be so, that home lessons, instead of taking the form they do now of preparing work that is set and should be done in school, should take the form of reading standard English authors. I will tell you why. I have 100 students, and the other day in a lecture I had occasion to use the name " Dominie Sampson," and in the course of the talk I asked the students the book in which that name occurs, and out of my 100 students, nearly all of whom matriculated, only three had ever read the book in which that name occurs. It seems to me unfortunate, to say the least of it, that that condition prevails now. The only suggestion I can make is that more time should be given by these secondary-school pupils to reading at night. If they have home work they have no time to read, and I think they should have their nights for reading standard English works. If they have not read these works they really cannot appreciate a newspaper. I mean to say that if the great majority of my 100 students had seen Dominie Sampson referred to in a newspaper they could not have appreciated the reference at all. So I think if secondary-school teachers were trained and therefore were able to teach more in school, the evenings of the children could be set free to do reading, which seems to me absolutely essential for the proper understanding of ordinary life. Mr. Mahon agreed with the need for the training of secondary-school teachers. The scheme is a good one; with the allowances that are given to students they may enter a training college and have experience there. The only thing that seems to be necessary is that the Boards of Governors should begin to demand trained teachers. No extra machinery is required so far as I can see if the Boards of Governors would say, "We must have trained teachers." Then those students at the University who have graduated and wish to teach in the secondary schools would have to enter the training college for a year. I would like to say a word or two about one or two points that have particularly struck me. First of all, in the primary schools I think that physical culture requires more attention. I do not know that I am exaggerating the position, but in Auckland City, at any rate, I think there is no scheme of physical culture. There is a scheme in the syllabus of course, and in every school physical culture is taught, but I do not think the teachers really know what they are teaching. There are a few enthusiasts here and there who understand something about it, and, of course, are doing good work, as enthusiasts always do wherever they are; but, speaking generally, the teachers in Auckland know little or nothing about physical culture, and little or no attention is given to physical culture. The time is put in, but not in an understanding sort of way. I was talking to the first assistant of a city school not long ago, and explaining something about physical culture, and I said that in training he should teach the boys to hold each nostril alternately while he inhaled deeply to make sure that adenoids did not block the passages. He replied, "What rubbish. I would no more allow my boys to make fools of themselves like that than I would fly." Ido not know whether the Commission is aware of it, but latterly a great amount of attention has been paid to this matter in England. A Commission was appointed some years ago to draw up a scheme of physical culture. This can be obtained in pamphlet form at a cost of 9d. This Commission drew up a careful syllabus which is self-explanatory, and diagrams are given of the exercises required. If that were introduced into New Zealand any teacher of ordinary intelligence, with a little help from a supervisor who could go round and organize the teachers and give them talks on the work, would have a fixed scheme of physical culture, which has been agreed upon by people in England, almost as good as you could wish to get. It seems to me that two organizers would be required—a man and a woman, who should have expert knowledge of the subject. I think they should first of all be teachers. The great trouble with physical-culture experts is that they are usually just gymnasts or military men, and the first essential, it,seems to me, is to have a teacher who understands child-life; he should be a man of University education. The fault of the physical-culture teaching in the past has been that it has been given by a man with just a big chest or muscle, and he has been allowed to run riot with the children. I think more attention should be paid to the physical side of children's education generally.