8.—5

48

Nature-study, elementary agriculture, physiology and first aid, physical measurements, and in a few schools elementary chemistry are taken in accordance with syllabus requirements. On the whole ,«Ood work is being done, more particularly along the lines of deepening the pupil's interests and strengthening the more formal work of the school. Geography, drawing, composition, and arithmetic should specially benefit from a wise correlation with elementary science. We are all too ready in the press of school-work to forget that if science is to justify its retention on a primary-school syllabus — a point on which educational authorities are far from being unanimous—it can do so only by giving opportunity for a direct appeal to facts and first-hand experiment. Our teaching still tends to be too didactic. Rousseau (not Professor Armstrong) said, " Let your pupil know nothing because you have told him, but because he has comprehended it himself. He is not to leai'n science, but to discover it. If you ever substitute authority for reason he will be but the sport of other's opinions." We need not necessarily pursue this heuristic method to the reductio ad absurdum of making every step forward a laboratory experiment. The child is still the " heir of all the ages," and his deductions from information wisely given or facts judiciously brought under his notice may still be heuristic. We are on perfectly safe ground so long as we give the pupil an opportunity of responding either physically or mentally to impressions made in any way by our teaching. Further and more important even from the pedagogic point of view is the continued insistence on clear oral or written statement of facts observed and of inferences drawn. This more than any other factor has conduced to Germany's educational pre-eminence. Critics of German methods have noted the fact that the so-called science lesson is rather a lesson on the command of the mother-tongue than a science lesson ad hoc. Of late years there has been a most beneficial movement towards making the girl's training bea,r more intimate relationship to the home life. Hence the introduction of cookery, laundry-work, housewifery, physiology and hygiene, &c. In all these subjects good work is being done in our district, and a wise mean is maintained between their purely vocational and their educational values. There is still room, however, for closer correlation between them and the ordinary school course. In the needlework we feel that some of the syllabus requirements might be modified to allow, particularly in the higher standards, of drawing and design taking the same place with regard to sewing that it now takes with woodwork. In cookery and laundry-work arithmetic should lead to the keeping of household accounts, which might be made as truly educative and certainly of more utility for primary children than, say, obsolete computations in compound interest or calculations as to the time required to empty or fill a bath by the somewhat unusual method of keeping the supply and waste pipes open at one and the same time. Physical drill and games should form a natural complement to the more theoretical treatment of physiology and hygiene. The rural science course in connection with the secondary departments of district high schools, inaugurated in 1909, has fully justified its establishment. Good work has been done, and this year there was keen competition for the Board's B or Rural Senior Scholarships reserved for those taking the rural course. Marks are allocated as follows : (1) For Junior Civil Service papers, 1,500 : (2) impractical work and oral examination, 50. We were specially pleased to find the general improvement in the practical work as evidenced in these scholarship examinations. Practically all opposition to the introduction of this course in our district high schools has disappeared ; in fact, criticism has rather taken the form of " asking for more." In last year's report we stated plainly the limitations of this work —" it was inaugurated to bring about a more intimate relation between the course of instruction in the district high schools and rural pursuits." This purpose it is satisfactorily accomplishing, but parents find that after the completion of two years students are at the end of a road which should lead right up to an agricultural college —the natural complement to such a course of instruction. Though somewhat outside our province, we would like strongly to support the claim for such an institution. Its absence (for Lincoln College is full, even if it were not so far away) gives some reason for the demand that our district high schools should, develop more on the lines of the purely vocational schools of America or Switzerland. We do not wish it to be inferred from these remarks that the " rural course " without this cope-stone of a specialized school of agriculture is in any way a failure even for those boys who intend to go on to the land. Such is not the case, for we feel confident that the high-school pupil will take to his life's work an added interest in rural affairs, and a mind quickened to grapple with the problems of the farm. At AV r ellington and Masterton instruction classes for teachers, pupil-teachers, and probationers were held in freehand, model, blackboard, and geometrical drawing, brushwork, design, woodwork, cardboard modelling, cookery, physiology, physical measurements, and towards the end of the year Mr. Gumming gave a course of lectures in elementary agriculture at Pahiatua. Those teachers who attended were greatly interested, and improved work in elementary agriculture and nature-study may confidently be expected in their schools. The unfavourable weather-conditions which prevail in the Pahiatua County interfere considerably with the attendance at such a class, but as there are many teachers in this district whose school-work would be greatly benefited by these lectures we hope to see a larger number taking advantage of them this year. Twenty-one teachers, representing fourteen schools, attended at Greytown for two weeks during the month of September for the purpose of receiving instruction in elementary agriculture and nature-study from Mr. Davies and Mr. dimming. In reporting on the work the instructors say, " We desire to express our appreciation of the excellent working spirit displayed by the class as a whole, and especially by those teachers in residence who returned to the laboratory night after night, evidently bent on making the most of their opportunity." An inspection visit paid to the school confirmed the good opinion of the work as given by the instructors. EXTRACT FROM THE REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE WELLINGTON TECHNICAL SCHOOL. The year 1911 has been in many respects one of readjustment. New regulations governing classes and capitation, and the admission of the day Technical School to a definite status, have necessitated rearrangement of the work to fit changes in the financial position, which has been somewhat improved