SECONDARY EDUCATION.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 7063, 15 January 1885, Page 4

SECOND ARY EDUCATION.

Speaking at the distribution of prizes at the Auckland Girls' High School, Professor Tucker said : -If he were asked ■what he considered the fault of the school, he would say it did not consist in any lack of energy, capacity,^ industry, or earnestness on the part of either the girls or the teachers, but he would cay it consisted in a too pronounced ambition. Ambition, however, seemed to him to be a fault that was somewhat pardonable ; at any rate, a fault on the right side, for he was convinced they would nev ?r aocomplish anything very great if they did not aim at something high. Let them aim at something high, and they wonld hit something. Let them fix their Btandard of attainments as hififh as they could, and work forward to that standard with all tbeir energies, even if thoy could not reach it. There was one qualification he would like to make to that statement : While he wished them to make up their minds that their school would be the best in New Zealand, that it Bhould represent the high water mark of school education of the colony, and that their head-master should be able to point with pride to what the school could do in the way of solid information and thinking; he would ask them to make sure that their foundation was eound. That was the fault he had to complain of most specifically. He wanted them to know everything they pretended to know ; to learn, and see what they learned was learned Boundiy. That, he might say, was the pride of the system of the University from which ha came ; that nothing should be done unless it was done soundly and thoroughly ; no step taken if the previous step had been a faltering or uncertain one. Let them press on, hasten on, to the high aim they took ; do it thoroughly, and with caution ; and if they did this it seemed to him with the great capacity that lay in them, and the great pains of the master, that school should have very few superiors in any country. There was another point in connection mtb. the school which struck him as very important, and upon which lie wished to Bpeak as earnestly as he could, viz. , the scholarship system. There was no doubt the scholarship system was a wonderful boon to the country : it was one, he maintained, that would be the envy of the mother country.' There was nothing in this colony to prevent the poorest boy or girl from rising through the instrumentality of these scholarships up to highest positions of influence and dignity and usefulness to the State. And it seemed to him that a system which provided that anyone gifted with brains aud industry should have a reasonable chance at any rate of passing through all the three grades of education, could never be overthrown ; but if it could not be overthrown certainly it could be very much injured, and he believed it was very much injured at the present time. He did not think it wasutilised to the extentitwas intended, and it seemed to him that the fault lay in the intermediate arrangement. These was not a secondary system schoolmaster, he believed, throughout the oolony who did not find fault with the working of the system. The question was often asked, how comes it about that out of the large number of district scholars who enter the secondary from the primary schools, bo few of them came out fit for a University career ? He wanted to know where all the capabilities of thoße excellent brains were frittered away, and the answer he was met with was this : We cannot get these scholars to come^ early enough ; they are not long enough in the secondary schools to acquire a taste for that secondary education which fits them to come on for this University education. That appeared to be about the truth. He wanted to know whether that was to remain the case; that simply because they could not get the primary scholars to the secondary schools early enough their capabilities in some respects for high and useful work were to be spoilt. They must have the primary scholars come i earlier, at a time when they still had the power before leaving school to acquire so much higher education as fitted j them to. come on to the University

career. He would not go further into the subject now, because he intended to have it at an early date fully discussed at the Board of Education. He would point out that in the list which thoße preeent held in their hands, while it was apparent that the district scholars held the highest places in what were particularly primary subjects, in Latin, French, mathematics, and so on they did not hold such a position, and he was afraid ' there were not more than two or three of them would before they left the school. Professor Tucker then said that he had that day visited the Girls' High School building, and he was surprised at the state it was in. He considered the building a disgrace to the city and the colony. It was ill-built, ill-ventilated, ill-divided. Ifc seemed to him that a school numbering 237 of the future women of the district ought to be free from any imperfect arrangements of that sort. He believed if it had not been a faot that at the head of that institution there were careful watchers and sympathetic managers, such as Mr and Mrs Heath, the school would have been a failure on that account. Mr Heath traversed Professor Tucker's remarks ac to the too pronounced ambition of the school, and pointed out that one of the forms had been examined on a book which they had not read. He felt assured that at the next examination there would be reason to say that the foundation they had been trying to lay was bringing forth good fruit — very good . fruit indeed. He denied that any part of the school was dirty ; the roofs were low, )>ut care was taken to secure good ventiliition. Every precaution was taken in this? respect.