NOTES ON EDUCATION.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 202, 20 May 1908, Page 2

NOTES ON EDUCATION.

(By Socrates.)

'INTERCHANGE OF TEACHERS. ' Last week there appeared in the columns of The Dominion a copy of a circular letter, which has been addressed to the Education Boards throughout Now Zealand, referring to the. proposed scheme for the migration of teachers and inspectors.. The letter states that the London County Council and municipal' bodies of other large centres are prepared to facilitate the furtherance of the recommendations of' the Imperial Confercnco on Education held in London in June of last year. Tho Conference suggested that arrangements might bo 'made for an interchange of teachers and inspectors between the Mother Country and.'tlio colonies, ; The whole question, of course,' ultimately resolves itself into one of finance, and it will bo for the educational authorities in New Zealand to consider whether the benefits' to be derived from' the scheme will justify tho cost. Mr. Gray, Principal of tho Normal Training College in Wellington, is of opinion that the course suggested would bo a.most valuable one, both for the teachers who would make the trip, and for education ill Nov,- Zealand generally: Some years ago the Wanganui Education > Board' instituted a scheme whereby certain of it§ teachers wera enabled to visit Australia in order'to study education methods there. Regulations were framed providing that- a scholarship of tho vdlue of £20 would be awarded on ah examination basis. Candidates , wero asked to prepare a thesis on some branch of education. Theso were adjudicated upon by a Board of Examiners, and tho successful candidate was subsequently enabled to add very considerably to his or her professional-ex-perience. One of tho teachers who reaped the benefit of this commendable schemo inaugurated by - tho Wanganui Education Board is now employed in one of the Wellington suburban schools. ' . . -.

There can, I think, bo no question that something of the kind would, apart from financial considerations involved, bo of immonse benefit to education in New Zealand. Even if the scheme went no further than the inspectors it would be something. There are school inspectors in New Zealand who, with tlio exception of, perhaps, a trip. to Australia, have seen nothing of the' great world of education beyond the seas. Occasionally one of our leading educationists tours abroad, and returns with his professional perspective broadened, and his mind invigorated by what ho has seen.. He has been lifted out of that groove into which all stav-at-homcs tend, moro or less, to gravitate; ho brings with him, from the world without, an atmosphero which braces those .with whom he conies into contact. One,man or woman who undertakes such a tour cf investigation, leavens, a very little; tho whole. It does not require a very great stretch of tho imagination to conceive what tho result would bo wcro tho recomraenda-' tions of the Conference adopted, and an interchange of teachers took placc at'regular intervals. A CREAT CONVENTION. On June 29 nest, the National Convention of" tho Education Association of America ■.will be formally opened at Cleveland. This is probably the largest and most representative gathering of the kind held anywhere, and with characteristic enterprise, the Executive Committee of the Association has evidently spared no pains to let the - world know of the event., Invitations to. attend the Convention were received in New Zealand bv Mr. T. R.' Fleming, M.A., LL.B., Senior Inspector of Schools, in' Wellington; and Mr. John Baillie, Chief Municipal Librarian. Neither of .these gentlemen, however, will be able to attend. Mr.. Baillie will be in America about that time, but his engagements, unfortunately, will not permit of his. presence in Cleveland during the sittings of the Convention. It is anticipated that the attendance at this year's Convention will reach'so,ooo. . The largest previous attendance recorded was at the Boston Convention of 1903.. the number then : being 35,000. Cleveland itself has a population of 525,000 people, and boasts of '30 colleges and professional schools (including tho well-known Western Reserve University, tho Case School of Applied Science, and St. Ignatius College), six high schools, 75 graded schools, and over 20 private schools. Among the ,visitors to. the Convention.will be about GOOO Indian teachers.- This department of education'is under tbe'jurisdiction of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, who has made great efforts to cultivate tho useful and picturesque arts of the Indian, and has instituted instruction in these arts by native teachers. 1 The results of this nionsier convention should be rather interesting.

EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY. : The Conductor of the Leipsic Institute for Experimental Pedagogy and Psychology, Dr. Brahn, in the course of some comments on tho work of the Institute, recently, had something to say concerning experimental psychology. The time had gone by, he said, when experimental psychology had to struggle for recognition. In training colleges the Herbartian psychology or some variety of it was taught, l'et, apart from the fact that this was. Quite opposed to the psychology now dominant, ill science, it formed the Worst ■ conceivable basis for the pedagogy of the teacher. Owing to the course adopted tho teacher was kept from, contact witii' tile best results'of modern science, and from the psychology oa which modorn pedagogy, urgent for the Arbeitsschulc (work school) instead of, the Lernschulo (learning school), was founded. Tho teacher required a psychology that gave the same right to the will, the feelings, and" the impulse toward activity as to ideas and perceptions. At the Universities qll psychology was now experimental. It was distinguished from tho old psychology by its 'method. The old psychology started with the last; and; so most complex, phenomena of, soul-life and strove to interpret them metaphysically; it had to denend on chance, and its observations could not : 'be subjected to tests'. Modorn psychology, on tho other hand, set out from" the simplest perceptions, and established as a law, that the same precedent causes would always issue in the same psychical nhonomona,- and that changes in tho influences at work would invariably result in definite psychical changes. ' In this way psychology had become an science; for its results could bo checked by every psychologist. And, similarly, pedagogy would aim to become ail exact science; it would, by repeating and varying impressions, ascertain laws and determine, in tho first instance, simple processes- The first task of tho now pedagogy would be to trace experimentally tho development of tho child. The importance of the Institute, over which Dr. Brnlm presides—it was founded in 190G as the first of its kind in Germany—lies in the fact' that the (largely American) methods of child study arc to be vigorously pursued in it, arid made knowii to teachers. —The English "Journal of Education.',' THE TRAININp OF TEACHERS.

Tho only possible general schome of training teachers must provide tho student with ,i knowledge not only of tho subject, but also of the object of infraction. There must be, without any straining after tho psychological side, a real development of the teaching instinct and aptitude,,; a becoming accustomed to the atmosphere qf the school, and a fostering of the power of handling a class. Tho crucial question is tho adjustment of tho balance between academic and practical work, and although much has been already dono by wiso guidance and give and tako to case the strain of what is almost an intolerable position, it is still an opon question whether wo may not yet bo forced back on declaring for a year's thorough training in the schools after tho close of the University course. The practical training of tho students has already seen drastic changes for the better in the passing of tho old practising schools, and tho enlistment of tho wider opportunities afforded by tho great Board pohools of the city. Method i 3. a 'real tiling, which the tenchcr can get only through an understanding of the child, bis subject, and himself, and his usefulness fails as soon as he ceases to bo a searcher for and a' tester of methods of teaching.— Calderwood, on the New Trainirifr of Teachers