8

E.—le

Now, gentlemen, I have to make an apology that most weak speakers and chairmen have to make, that 1 have been so absorbed with one thing and another that I have been unable to prepare any written address for you on this occasion. However, Ido not think that that will be any loss to you. To give you a disquisition on various abstract theories of education would be a work of supererogation to a large extent, and to deluge you with figures, many of which you have been for years drawing up yourselves, and which 30U are now looking forward to this month or next to prepare for the returns of the colony, would be neither a compliment nor a pleasure. I think we may therefore, perhaps, just briefly outline one or two things that in the present condition of our educational system need more or less consideration. Gentlemen, you all know the efforts of the Legislature and of the Department, and of this Conference and of the Education Boards, have been directed for some time past to making and establishing a more complete national system of education in New Zealand ; and while I think we probably all agree about one thing—that whatever happens with regard to the control and administration of education it is highly desirable we shall have one national system—we are all agreed also that we should keep an efficient and complete local control. I think we are all agreed about that. Thus I think we may safely say we must have in some matters rather centralisation than a collection of disconnected units. We must have a general sjstem as complete as the sympathies and interests of the people of the colony can make it. But we must have close and efficient and complete local control in a great many of the most important matters that cannot possibly be controlled in any other way efficiently. I do not want to touch 011 these two things, but I think we should all take them for axioms. Well, taking them for axioms, I need not indicate except very roughly to you that we have our primary schools taking children from the age of five years to fifteen, if necessary. We have, following them, our secondary schools, the door to which is open by scholarship and free places to those who are qualified therefor, and by payment in the case of those who reach a lower qualification. We have our district high schools, the proper function of which—and I think a very important one, perhaps scarcely carried out as well as it might be, or as well as I hope it will be in the future—our district high schools, whose proper function and place I take it is in the country. I wish to say that by the way. It seems to me that a district high school in a large town is an anomaly.—(Hear, hear.) —A district high school in a large town would probably have a large secondary department. Experience shows that the secondary department in such circumstances approaches in number two hundred or more. That number is generally considered almost enough for one man in a secondary school, and it is too much to expect a man wdio is headmaster of a school having a primary department of seven or eight hundred or more to exercise in addition effective control and guidance over a secondary department large enough to stand alone.—(Hear, hear.) —The cases in which district high schools were established in two of the large centres of the colon}- were exceptional by reason of merely temporary circumstances arising from the option given by " The Secondary Schools Act, 1903," which is now included in the Education Act of 1904. The option given therein to secondary schools of admitting pupils to free places was not used in the case of the secondary schools in those two centres. The two secondary schools in one of the four chief centres, and one secondary school in a smaller centre, are now the only schools which have not exercised that option and thrown open their doors to free pupils. Of course, there is an alternative way of providing free secondary education in these two towns, and I have no doubt the Government will come to a decision very soon. Negotiations are still going on ; but, of course, if the secondary school does not see its way to exercise the option given it by Act of Parliament in the direction of giving free places in return for the capitation payable under the Act, then the establishment of another secondary school will be necessary, not merely a secondary department of a district high school, but a new fully equipped high school under section 88 of the Act. In the country districts, however, where there is a sufficient number of pupils, I believe the district high school has still an extremely important duty to perform. I have seen during the last two years most of the district high schools of the colony. I have not endeavoured to make a complete inspection of them. I do not think it is our function to do that. The Act says the Inspector-General is to inspect them—that is, the Inspector-General or any other Inspector of the Department appointed for the purpose—but it is rather our function to find out what relation they bear to the general system of the colony, and to endeavour to make them an organic part of that system, and therefore wherever we can we try to visit these schools in company with the Inspectors of the district. I think that is a very good practice. I will not say it should be done invariably ; it may not always be convenient for the local Inspectors to accompany us, but I think that this is (he best arrangement if we can manage it. We want to go with them to confer with them as to the work of those district high schools that we visit, and as to matters to which it is necessary to give attention in order to bring these schools more fully into accord with local wants and with the general system of the colony. Although that may not be the view that some of you have taken, I think the plan is a good one. I have invariably derived a great deal of pleasure in going round with the Inspectors and mutually exchanging ideas.—(Applause.) —While recognising that they have a proper function to fulfil, I regret that I must say I deliberately think the district high schools are one of the weak points in the education system of the colony at the present time. Ido not know that it is the fault of the teachers. Ido not know that it is the fault of the Inspectors. It is because of their difficult position in the system of the colony ; and it is not always easy to say, until the circumstances all become clear to our minds, exactly what position they ought to occupy. The district high schools several years ago were a much simpler problem. Now it has become a little more complex, and I think it .is a subject well worth your deliberation at this Conference. Then we have the technical schools and classes, and I should like for a moment to remind you of one side of the system in which it would appear that the technical-school system might play a very important part. It is not by any means clear that it is desirable or necessary that in the large towns secondary schools should attempt to give very special lines of training to those who come to them. Their aim would seem to be sufficiently wide if they were to carry on the general