E.—2.

[Appendix C.

feature in the schools is the tendency to memory preparation. Pupils in the upper classes will describe an event in history or give the mountains and rivers of the continents without difficulty, and the same plan is followed very largely when essentially observational preparation is necessary. Thus in quite a number of schools a description of the thermometer, barometer, and raingauge is prepared, but the instruments are not provided for the schools, and the children are quite ignorant of their use and practical value. We are at times surprised at the absence of scientific method in the schools, and the surprise tends to increase when the necessary instruments are obtainable at comparatively small cost. If teachers would foster observational and experimental work more, school-keeping would be robbed of its seeming tediousness, and children would come to express themselves freely and in a natural way. Self-reliance is almost looked on as a fault in some cases, because the preparation and use of school-books has become such a feature in our present many-sided scheme of education. Infant and preparatory training does not just now occupy the prominent position that it held in the Board schools before the issue of special grants for manual instruction. Subjects of manual instruction should be taken in the case of preparatory children when the conditions are favourable. Such instruction should be fostered, not forced. Each school has an individuality of its own, and at times it is all important to give particular heed to fundamental work, but this aspect of training is too often overlooked, and school efficiency has come to be judged largely in proportion to the amount earned in the manual-instruction classes. It is cause for regret to find a growing tendency for teachers to lose their own individuality in trying to carry out, not what they themselves think, but what others order. Sense-training, 'which ought to occupy a high place in all preparatory classes, receives far too little attention. No schemes are to be found in the lower departments of the schools, where systematic instruction is carried on in eye and ear training, nor do I remember a single lesson given to young children on the subject of taste or smell or feeling. And yet sense cultivation properly employed is fraught with great possibilities in the encouragement of observation, the quickening of the perceptive faculties, and in the cultivation of expression of language. In fact, sense-training is the cultivation of true science, as it is purely experimental, and every child, whilst passing through the preparatory school course, should undergo systematic instruction in this vital aspect of school training. Teachers who are in charge of the lower department in the schools should give more heed to the study of subjects that are limited by the environment of their pupils. The real strength and success of a school depend in a large measure on the quality of the teaching in the preparatory school. This is well understood in all the best schools of Great Britain, where the infant school occupies a much more important place than in this country. In the upper classes of many schools signs are not wanting to show there is a growing tendency to provide pupils with a kind of ready-made knowledge instead of laying a foundation that will train the children to think, judge, and act for themselves. In the school examinations as now conducted the time at an Inspector's disposal enables him to study critically methods of instruction, and the effects of different methods upon different classes of pupils. Defects are always to be found in the schools where young and inexperienced teachers are employed, but-4he tendency to foster the individuality of teachers under the regulations for the inspection and examination of schools is largely discounted by the adoption of capitation payments for special subjects under the manual regulations. Attention is again called to the infrequencv of good reading in the schools. There is an absence of precision, phrasing, naturalness, and good enunciation among pupils in the higher classes, which imply defective instruction in the earlier stages of preparation. In the infant schools at Home the mistress in charge is a trained specialist. Particular methods of instruction are adopted in different schools, but everything is done to make as thorough as possible all the foundation-work in essential subjects like reading and arithmetic. Writing continues to be well taught in the majority of schools, but less attention appears to be given to neatness and method than was the case a few years ago. The increasing number of school subjects may account for this. Some schools —notably Standards V and VI, Gisborne, Makauri, Otoko, Pohui, Tolaga Bay, Omahu, Pukahu, Whetukura, and Ormondville —showed some excellent specimens of penmanship, and the average results may be set down as satisfactory. The effects of training children to habits of self-reliance are most noticeable in arithmetic as between town and country. In the smaller schools where teachers have to deal with two, three, or more classes a lot of necessarily thrown on the children themselves in the preparation of their work, particularly in a subject like arithmetic. In a large school the position is quite different. There the class teacher docs too much teaching, instead of directing and controlling the studies of his pupils. The duty of a teacher is to train by suggestion and otherwise, but it is no less the duty of children to learn what to do themselves, after general principles have been explained. Class teachers might lessen their own labours considerably by fostering self-reliance more among the children, particularly in arithmetic. Geography in these days of commercialism is too important a subject to be neglected, and yet it does not occupy the prominent place it used to do in the school course. It is hardly the syllabus that is at fault, for in many respects it is intensely practical, but with so many subjects to prepare, the shadow of knowledge is more sought after than the substance. One might set down here some of the curious answers of Standard VI pupils in the late examinations, butthey all point to the same weakness —viz., too many subjects and insufficiency of time for preparation. Instruction in English receives much painstaking attention in many schools. In the smaller schools, where one, two, or three pupils make up the two upper classes, difficulties exist that make it necessary to use text-books for working exercises. But most good is being done by encouraging pupils to read simple books. The school library is mandatory in every school of Great Britain receiving Government aid, and it should no less be mandatory here. The conver-

XXVI