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E.--6

by the corresponding efferent, nerves in overt expressions or actions. This brief statement means a great deal in education. Too much school-work has for its chief or sole aim impression; not enough of it is adapted to give opportunity for expression or execution. Since no one doubts that the teacher knows a great deal more than the class, why spend so much time and effort, as many teachers do, in showing off how much they themselves know 2 It is far better to get the pupil to make an ever-so-inadequate demonstration of a problem than for the teacher to rattle glibly off a perfect demonstration which is not comprehended by the pupil. The teacher's knowledge has been made clear, and the process has also made plain to the pupil his own disheartening slowness and ignorance, and there is little gained; the .discouragement not infrequently means his intellectual and scholarly doom. The lesson is, then, that it is better to emphasize the pupil's effort at expression, no matter how faulty that may at first be. The pupil must learn by doing, not simply by listening. Teachers who are more anxious always to get their pupils to express themselves than they are to show their own learning are the successful teachers. A recognition of this truth would revolutionize the work in many a class-room." English. There is much complaint among secondary-school teachers that pupils come to them from the primary schools with no knowledge of formal grammar, which makes the task of beginning a, foreign language a very difficult one. One Principal, seeing a slight improvement lately in this respect, remarks, " I have recently found quite a number of pupils who know a noun from a verb." At the same time it must be remembered, as was clearly stated by the Director of Education at the Secondary Schools Conference of 1915, that the primary-school syllabus is not framed with a view solely or even mainly to the requirements of those pupils who propose to continue their education at a secondary school, but rather of that large number who complete their formal education at the primary school. The secondary-school course in English will, therefore, naturally commence with a systematic study of the elementary formal grammar necessary for the beginner in French or Latin. As regards the teaching of literature, there is a commendable appreciation of the fact that such teaching should be extensive rather than intensive, and that a taste for good literature is fostered rather by wide reading than by the microscopic dissection of literary fragments. For the young teacher of English we recommend a careful study of the excellent pamphlet on " The Teaching of English in Secondary Schools," issued by the English Board of Education, and reprinted by the New Zealand Education Department as No. 10 of the Special Reports on Educational Subjects, a copy of which was forwarded some years ago to each secondary school. We give one quotation from the pamphlet: ' Two classes of books should be excluded from every syllabus of English literature: (1) Abridgments as distinct from selections; (2) handbooks and histories of literature, if treated as equivalent to the study of originals to which they refer and a knowledge of which they pre-suppose, if they are to be of any value. Side by side with interpretation of the author's meaning wall naturally go some study of his style. The topics which may be rightly dealt with under that comprehensive head clearly vary with the work studied, but the teaching should always arise from and be applied to definite passages of the text before the class. Abstract generalizations, for instance, about the classicism of Milton's language are by themselves mere catchwords; they have meaning only if the class lias collected and analysed under guidance from the teacher numerous phrases or passages in which Milton's diction is directly framed on classical models." Yet we saw cases where pupils who had not yet reached matriculation standard were studying a, history of English literature containing 400 pages of biography and learned criticism almost without quotation; we heard pupils asked to criticize Kingsley's poetry in terms of a text-book, and afterwards to prove the justice of the criticism by reading extracts from Kiugsley (truly a preposterous method); and we listened to an admirable criticism of Tennyson's "Idylls" by a, girl who afterwards confessed that she had never read any part of the poem ! These were, however, exceptional cases, and generally a wide range of good reading was covered, in many schools extensive use is made of the school library, the teachers selecting suitable books for each pupil to read at home during vacation or week-ends. A written or oral precis of each book should be asked for when the book is returned. It is beginning to be recognized by teachers that the art of speaking and writing good English is best learnt bj r imitation, and that the study of composition should therefore always be closely connected with the study of literature. Reading. Heading is not, usually a, strong feature, partly because pupils are not always asked to stand up and are allowed to lean over the book in a careless attitude; partly because the reading is taken at too fast a rate. Simultaneous reading aloud may occasionally (but only occasionally) be taken as a, cheek on the pace, and in many schools elocution and singing lessons give valuable exercise in correcting a tendency to false pronunciation of vowel sounds and to the slurring of final consonants. Latin. The teaching of Latin undergoes little change. The language does not lend itself to conversational treatment, and even in those schools where some years ago attempts were being made by highly qualified masters to introduce this method the attempts seem to have been abandoned. Yet we believe that much more oral work might usually be done, especially in the earlj' stages. The chief advantages of such work are that it can be made more interesting than written work, and that much more ground can be covered in a given time. In the highest classes the method of retranslation is often tried with considerable success, and is a great aid to connected composition. The number of pupils beginning Latin is steadily diminishing, partly on account