E. —5.

In Denmark education is compulsory from the beginning of the term following the child's seventh birthday to his fourteenth birthday, but children may attend at 6 years. At 11 years the brighter children, if successful in a qualifying examination, enter the middle school (mellemskole) where they remain till they are 15 or 16 years of age. Those who do not qualify receive suitable instruction in the elementary school till they are 14, or, in some cases, 15. At about 15 those pupils in the mellemskole who intend to enter the professions or the University sit for an examination, and, if successful, enrol in the gymnasium, where they remain till they are about 18. The gymnasium provides three courses of study —namely : — (a) Classical languages ; (b) Modern languages ; (c) Mathematics and natural science. Success in the Studenter Examen at 18—)— gives admission to the University and enables students to prepare for the professions and the higher branches of the Public Service. Those pupils who do not enter the gymnasium sit for the Real Examen at 15+. This examination is controlled by the Government. Success in it qualifies for admission to positions in the Railways, Post Office, Telegraphs, Customs, &c., and to the Royal Veterinary College, the Agricultural College, and the College of Dentistry. Examinations, therefore, play a considerable jiart in the Danish system of elementary and postprimary education. In New South Wales the primary course ends at about 11 years, and on the results of the Primary Binal Examination pupils qualify for admission to one or other of the following types of schools, if it is available : — (a) High schools : (b) Intermediate schools : (c) Junior technical schools. An Intermediate Examination is held at 14-15 and a School Certificate Examination at 16-17, the latter being accepted by the University for Matriculation. There are also agricultural high schools for boys from 11 or 12 to 16 or 17 years, and domestic science schools for girls from 12-f- to 15+. In Victoria the primary course ends at about 11 years of age and pupils enterfa) High schools : (b) Higher elementary schools : (c) Central schools : (d) Junior technical schools : (e) Domestic arts schools. In Australia, high schools, technical high schools, and agricultural high schools provide five-year courses ; higher elementary schools provide two-year courses, with a commercial or technical bias ; central schools are for post-primary pupils who are gathered into centres for further education for an indefinite period while they are waiting for employment; intermediate high schools give the first three years' course of the high school to pupils who stay at school only till they are about 15 years of age. East Suffolk is regarded as having solved in a large measure the difficulty of reorganizing schools in rural areas. Where this education authority has established in the country a senior school, or aiea school as it is called, it has provided the pupils with bicycles, capes, and leggings, or a bicycle allowance of 255. per annum for travel up to a distance of about 4J miles. This means of transit is suitable in East Suffolk because the rainfall is not heavy, the country is level, and the distances between the schools is not great. Some of the area " schools have an infant and a junior division for the village children up to 11 years of age. Essex also provides bicycles for conveying children to senior schools. Conditions in rural areas in New Zealand are generally so different from those in most English counties that I doubt whether the provision of bicycles or bicycle allowances would prove satisfactory. Manitoba and British Columbia have established junior high schools, which the pupils enter at about 12 years of age and where they remain for three years, making the school system a 6—3—3 one. In British Columbia attendance is compulsory from 7 to 15 years. In Manitoba children of ages 7to 14 must attend full-time. Any pupil over 14, if enrolled, must attend regularly. A child over 12 may be exempted for employment, but only for six weeks in the term. Employment under 14, except as mentioned, is forbidden. Children of ages 14 to 16 must attend school regularly if not engaged in some regular occupation. San Francisco also has three-year junior high schools, which will be described more fully later on in this report. To the best of my knowledge the English system does not provide for an exploratory period during which the aptitudes and inclinations of a pupil are kept under observation with the object of discovering whether he should enter upon an academic course or upon one giving greater opportunities for practical work. It is interesting here to point out that in England and Scotland a smaller percentage of pupils leave the secondary schools after one or two years than is the case in New Zealand, because the Special Place Examination selects the academically-minded children, and these are, as a rule, prepared to remain at school for at least three or four years. The selective central school is really another kind of secondary school for those pupils who just fail to reach the special-place standard. There is this material difference, however, that, except for the few children who compete again at 13+ for admission to secondary schools, the pupils do not prepare for any external academic examination. The head teachers of these schools say, " Preparation for external examinations has played a comparatively small part in the work of central schools." The principal examinations taken are those of a vocational character.

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