115

£.—l4

206. Taking the infant mistress and the headmistress, which do you regard as the highest official ?—The head mistress. Here I think the scale is distinctly wrong :it puts them both on the same level. We have for years assumed in this district that the relative values, financially, of their services are as three is to four—£lso to £200. 207. Will you state your reasons why there should be more salary paid to the headmistress? —The difference is as to responsibility. The duties of that mistress are distinctly more important. It is much more difficult for us to get a mistress to discharge those duties well. She is responsible practically for the well-being of all the girls in her department— i.e., for all girls in Standards 11. to VII. She has to supervise the sewing, hold examinations, and correct hundreds of examina-tion-papers and other written exercises outside of school-hours, and has to be a teacher of high scholastic attainments. Both these mistresses occupy extremely important positions, but there is a distinct difference in their qualifications and in the arduous nature of the duties imposed on them. 208. Therefore, in regard to salary, you think there should be a difference?— Yes; I should say, about £40 or £50. If you refer to the Minister's Annual Beport you will find that the mistresses we have at the head of the girls' departments frequently possess very high qualifications, while the infant mistressesln very many cases have never got above the lowest grade of scholarship. 209. Can you express an opinion upon the wisdom of the conditions of the suggested scale as regards certificates ?—ln starting the certificates in small schools at E2, I am of opinion that 2 is too high a qualification. Very few indeed —practically none—of the teachers who occupy these positions can possibly expect to have so high a qualification as 2. 210. Do I understand you to say you disapprove of this?— Yes ; at the beginning they start too high in the No. 2. It is too high a qualification. That ought to come down to 3 at least. For D 2 I should put D 3, and for Dl I should have D 2. 211. How would your remarks apply to the markings of any certificates in schools of 250 to 600 children ?—I think CI is too high. There are very many good men who have not had opportunities of getting a C qualification, and yet they do the work required of them extremely well. Why should we penalise them ? 212. What would you substitute for CI ?—I am not prepared to say. lam not clear in my own mind whether C should be kept in or not. 213. Take the certificate D 2, on the right-hand side, No. 105: should that stand ?—Yes, I think so. 214. Is it not the case that as time passes teachers' certificates might in some instances have to be changed, either by the result of age or neglect of themselves, or other circumstances ? For instance, men with a D 2 to-day might five years hence be entitled to a lower certificate?— That is quite so. But it is very difficult to frame a regulation that would meet every case. 215. You would not recommend any regulations by which certificates should be revised from time to time ? —No ; there are great difficulties in the way. After a certain age teachers gradually , deteriorate, and, with their certificates revised out of existence, what would become of them in the absence of a superannuation fund ? Some Continental schools provide 10 per cent, a week after a teacher has been so many years in the service. We English people do not know how to treat the best servants of the State. There is another point to be noted in connection with the proposed demand for certificates. I think the Inspector-General's system of laying stress on the importance of the numerical qualification of the certificate as against the literary qualification is unjust. He imposes 4 per cent, of a penalty for failure to produce a required certificate of any number—that is, if the teacher's certificate is D 3 instead of D 2, that teacher is penalised 4 per cent. If he held a D certificate when a C was required, then he would suffer a reduction of only 1 per cent. I understand the Inspector-General's object is to make the teacher ambitious of getting a higher certificate; but his scheme will fail of its purpose, because we have never found the slightest difficulty, even without any certificate requirements whatever, in getting a teacher who has a natural aptitude for the work to improve his number, whereas we find an enormous difficulty in getting him to go from Cto B. We find no difficulty in getting them to improve their qualifications from 4to 3, from 3to 2, and from 2to 1; but the difficulty is to get them to go from Dto C and from Cto B. I would therefore advocate that this provision be expunged, or that the penalty should be made equal. 216. Under the proposed scale, would not the number of our pupil-teachers in North Canterbury be materially increased ?—The pupil-teachers will be increased by twenty. 217. Do you think, in the circumstances of the colony, it would be advisable—and certainly so far as North Canterbury is concerned—to increase our pupil-teachers by that number ?—Yes, very desirable, as it would give us the opportunity of introducing the reform I laid such stress on in my introductory remarks-—the half-time system. And that is not the sole reason of my approval. We need assistants, and we must get them supplied from somewhere, and Ido not see any better supply than pupil-teachers. 218. With regard to training-schools, would you advocate the formation of more trainingschools in the colony than we now possess ? —Yes. It was unanimously agreed upon by the Inspectors' Conference. 219. Do you think there should be training-colleges in each of the large centres of the colony ? —Yes, where there are opportunities of university education, and easy access to higher education. 220. Mr. Davidson.] Have you had any experience in the Otago Educational District ?—Yes; I was there for some years before I came to North Canterbury. 221. I understand you take very strong objection to the staff of the smaller schools up to 50? —Yes. I expressed the opinion that it would probably be wiser to postpone the introduction of a mistress to 4l instead of 36, as suggested in the scale. In that ease, ninety-eight schools would