The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 1887.

Auckland Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 143, 18 June 1887, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 1887.

Tor' the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, Tor the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

Thjj .controversy which was raised by Mr Fidler's report upon the Beresfordstreet School has ended in something very much better than a squabble. For years the teaching profession has sought to obtain such a system "of inspection \ as would ensure uniformity of.results, and, wo.may reasonably hope that the resolution which was adopted by the Board yesterday, on M.r Upton's nvotion, will be the means of realising,their wish. So long as each inspector is allowed to set up his own standard of efficiency,under the school syllabus,' the teacher's experience %iir Be one- of painful uncertainty, and he must labour on with ho confidence that * his work will be fairly judged* Alike for the sake of-. the ■teachers and for; r theinformation of the Inspectorial staff, the Committees and the Board, .tho three.inspectors should adopt something like a uniform test. It need not be a stereotyped one— there must, indeed, be sufficient play to, prevent the key from being passed on ahead from one school to another — but still the standard of "attainment in each class could very easily be so settled that one year's results by one inspector may be made a test of any .subsequent year by another inspector. Übless this is done, the annual returns of standard examinations are more or less meaningless to any person but the examiner. Of course, the written papers are .'there,, and maybe gone over by the other , inspectors' or the Board; but life is. too short for that sort of thing, and the inspectors, npt to speak of the members of the Board, .have something else .to do. ...than to spend their, time in comparing'.tlie questions of one inspector with those of his colleagues. , It' is strange that a measure so obviously advisable should have; been ;, so ! long delayed.