Appendix C]

E.—2.

departmental regulations has in some localities led to the breakdown of the system. While we are entirely in favour of conveyance as against increase in the number of small schools, we arc utterly opposed to the basis of payment and the invidious restrictions as to age and distance imposed by the Department. We proceed now to deal with some of the subjects taught in the schools. Steady advance is being made in reading, and both teachers and pupils arc finding themselves more at borne with modern methods of dealing with this subject. The influence of the school library is being widely felt in this branch and in composition, and it is evident that the pupils, especially in the senior classes, are realizing that the school reading-lesson is only an introduction to a broad field of pleasure and profit in the books to which so many of them now have access. If this increasing interest is to continue, teachers and Committees should see to it that the school library receives a considerable yearly addition. During the year we have frequently had occasion to comment on the faulty enunciation and impurity of vowel-sounds to be met with among our pupils and even among our teachers; but now that the services of an instructor in elocution are provided, we look for considerable improvement in this regard. Writing and spelling continue to be well taught. The work in the former subject, however, moves too slowly, and figures receive too little attention. We would suggest that formal lessons in figuring be taken weekly. Composition and grammar show a steady advance, attributable, we think, to the more intelligent treatment and the wider scope of the reading-matter available in the continuous Readers, the School Journal, and the libraries, and to the fuller treatment of the essential parts of functional grammar. The questions set in the latter branch were in most cases well answered, but perusal of the essays showed that the pupils are receiving too little training in right methods of collecting facts, in co-ordinating them, and in expressing them in well-chosen and well-placed terms —each in itself a difficult process requiring special treatment. Tn this work the aim should be to develop simultaneously the imagination and the critical sense of the individual pupil, and to secure at. each point the appreciation and judgment of the class as a whole. Arithmetic continues to 1«> well taught in most of the schools, and pupils are receiving in this branch a good training in reasoning and in logical setting-out of their work. Most of the weakness noted is due to mechanical inaccuracy, resulting partly from inadequate memorizing of the tables and partly from the fact that too little use is made of mental calculation in connection with the work : in fact, mental arithmetic is too often treated as an isolated subject instead of being made pari and parcel of every question worked during the course of instruc tion. It should be borne in mmdl that nearly all the calculations pupils will be called upon to make in after-life must be done mentally, and there is no reason why mental computation should not be insisted upon in all the arithmetic done in school. Geography, Course A, is generally well treated on both observational and experimental lines, but it is not uncommon to find that, where meteorological instruments are supplied and observations and records are regularly made, little use is made of the information thus gained for instruction in other subjects. Geography, Course B, is in an unsatisfactory condition, and will continue so until teachers realize that mere reading will not suffice for the treatment of this important branch. In geography, as in history, vivid personal teaching by men and women thoroughly interested in the subject is necessary if pupils are to derive any lasting benefit from the work. [n many schools much good work is being accomplished 1 in connection with object-drawing, but in others too much time is given to the copying of conventional forms. This is to be deprecated, for even a nearly perfect reproduction of a conventional design has little value in comparison with the attempt to reproduce, however imperfectly, the shape of simple natural objects. Geometrical drawing has received fuller attention during the year, and the teaching of design has been placed on a higher plane than formerly. We are not satisfied with the treatment of singing in our schools. Fur the most part teachers content themselves with teaching a few songs—too often hackneyed and beyond the experience or appreciation of the pupils. Seldom do we find ringing utilized as a means of healthful recrea tion, as a means of obtaining discipline, or is an aid to correct enunciation and purity of vocalization. Where it is so used its influence permeates, brightens, and lightens all the teacher's work, but this cannot be the result where singing occupies only half an hour a week, and that too often the last half-hour on Friday. Elementary agriculture is carried on with much enthusiasm in many of our rural schools. Perhaps there is no other subject of the currioulum in which the pupils are so keenly interested as in this. No pretence is made to teach farming, as too many erroneously suppose. The irardens and experimental plots provide opportunities for observation of the workings of nature and of some of the principles underlying gardening operations, and are used as a means of creating a healthy, intelligent interest in the environment of the pupils. We hope that by "sowing acts we shall reap habits," and thai elementary agriculture taught in connection with the other school subjects will produce in our youth such mental alertness and powers of discrimination as will conduce tn success in their future spheres of activity. Instruction in woodwork for boys and in cookery for girls lias lx>en carried on with marked success in the larger centres. In these classes the chief aim has been the inculcation of neat and cleanly manipulation, of systematic habits of work, of resourcefulness, and of adjustment of

vii—E. 2 (Ap P . c).

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