E.—lβ

50

and the values we have placed under these heads are the results of wide and at the same time minute observation. We know that there is such a thing as examination-day manners, which, put on for the day, sit awkwardly on the unaccustomed wearer, and are of little value. Orderly class movements are good things, but they are not all that order implies : attitudes while at work and at rest; the management of books, slates, and papers ; the character of the movements of individuals in the class-room; the arrangement of and care for furniture and apparatus,—these and such as these affect the mark for order. Attention has a wider scope than listening to the oral work of the day and properly answering questions. We look for evidence of self-control, of capacity for continuous concentration of mental power, of habitual patient, self-reliant grappling with difficulties. We attach little importance to the simultaneous salute we sometimes receive as we enter the class-room, or to such answering as, "London is on the Thames, miss" and " Three and four make seven, sir." We prefer prompt obedience to the teacher, especially the female teacher. A salute in the street to the Inspector goes for little if the teachers, male and female, are not habitually saluted. We should hold dear the many little kindnesses and courtesies between pupil and pupil, and between teacher and pupil, for which the school gives ample opportunity, and which go so far to make school life sweet and attractive. We cannot close our report without expressing our sense of the loss the colony has sustained by the death of Mr. Habens, late Inspector-General of Schools. When, at the most critical period of the educational history of the colony, it was found necessary to evolve from a chaos of provincial systems an orderly and efficient national system of education, the Government of the day found in Dr. Hislop and Mr. Habens men admirably fitted by capacity and experience to perform the task. It should ever stand to their credit that, while educational doctrinaires, Home and colonial, were lauding to the skies payment by results as the panacea for all educational ills, they saved our schools from its blighting influence. Educationists may differ as to details in Mr. Habens's classification of teachers and standard syllabus; but all must acknowledge that they were well designed, and that, on the whole, they have well fulfilled their purpose. We deeply deplore his death. We have, &c, P. Go yen, 1 W. S. EITZGEBALD, T , 0. B. Bichaedson,' I™pector ß . The Chairman, Education Board, Otago. C. B. Bossenoe, )

SOUTHLAND. Sir, — Education Office, Invercargill, 16th March, 1899. We have the honour to present our report on the primary schools of this district for the year ended 31st December, 1898. The following table gives the summary of results for the whole district: —

A few notes may be made on the information contained in this table. The number of pupils in the class above Standard VI. shows an increase as substantial as it is continuous. This we believe to be matter for congratulation. It is sometimes said that teachers should give themselves entirely to the standard work, and refrain from trenching upon the domain of the secondary school. But, in the first place, the presence of this class does not interfere with the progress of the lower classes ; on the contrary, it appears to add zest to the teacher's work; and it is, as a rule, only in the best schools that the class is found. In the second place, if primaryschool teachers were denied the privilege of imparting any instruction beyond the elements many promising children would, at the critical period of their mental history, be debarred entirely from

Classes. Presented. Examined in ■ Standards. Passed. Average Age of those that passed. ■ Above Standard VI. ... Standard VI. V. IV. III. II. I. Preparatory 187 593 967 1,209 1,308 1,202 1,122 2,906 580 939 1,162 1,263 1,152 1,091 516 718 938 1,024 1,101 1,069 Yrs. mos. 13 9 12 11 11 11 10 11 9 10 8 10 Totals 9,494 6,187 5,366 11 4* » Mi ean of average a| ;«-