THE RESULTS OF THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXV, Issue 7838, 19 April 1886, Page 6

THE RESULTS OF THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.

TO THE EDITOB. Sib, —I see that the Board of Education has arrived at the conclusion that the reading, writing and arithmetic of the State-educated children of North Canterbury are not as good as they ought to be. The reading in most schools ranges " from medium to bad," many have not been taught the " ABC of arithmetic." One's first question is, "How far is this general report of the Inspectors borne out by the detailed results of their examination of each school P" If the state of things is so bad as they make out, one would expect that a considerable percentage of all the

children in North Canterbury presented for examination in these subjects have failed in ' their respective standards. Or, again, one might expect that the town schools were efficient, but that in the country schools a considerable percentage had failed. I don't know if this is the case, and I have not the means of ascertaining. But if it turns out that a fair percentage of children have passed the' standards in these subjects, then either the Inspectors were wrong in allowing them to pass, or else they are wrong in condemning the general efficiency of the education. I am sorry to see that there seems a tendency on the part of some members of the.Boardto take it for granted that the teachers are at fault. Mr Saunders seems to think that money can do anything—e.g., that it can make the children of uneducated generations, who scarcely see a book or hear one talked of at home, able to read well at the age of 13 or 14. In such cases the most conscientious teachers may do their best and fail. I hope the Board will also consider carefully the difficulties under which teachers perform their duties. Are the classes unreasonably large ? Are the class-rooms unreasonably crowded ? I know of one class-room into which are crowded three classes of young children of one mistress and two pupil teachers. How can any satisfactory results be expected '* from such a state of things ? And this is by no means a solitary instance. I have known classes range as high as a hundred and five, all handed over to one wretched struggling pupil teacher. It is now accepted at Home as a general maxim of what Mr Stout would call pedagogy, that no teacher can do his best with a class of more than' twenty-five. If this is true, and the Board allow classes of fifty, it follows that they can only get half the amount of teaching out of the teacher, and ought not to expect more. And if enormous classes such as I have described are handed over to pupil teachers, who are not yet fully trained, the results must,' of course, be still more unsatisfactory; and if you add to all this the constant worry andinterruption and distraction inevitably caused by having three classes all taught at once in the same room (for you cannot help sometimes having two "noisy" lessons going on at the same time) you still further reduce to an indeterminable extent the teacher's power to produce satisfactory results. If the money cannot be found to build separate class-rooms, and put on more teachers, then let the Inspectors be instructed to reduce the standard of excellence which they expect of any teacher by one-half when there are fifty children in a class, and so on, and by something more for every additional class'that is being taught in the same room. I think it is quite probable that the Inspectors' report of unsatisfactory results is true, but, for my own part, I am amazed at the results which have been obtained by the deficient machinery provided. Where there are enormous classes, crowded class rooms, and half-trained teachers, our boasted system of education is very little short of a gigantic sham. I hope the Board will also invite evidence from teachers as to the way in which Inspectors do their work. Some Inspectors, for example, have been known to frighten the children out of their wits by their bullying manners; others have pronounced the children's names in a fashion so decidedly Scotch that the poor small things did not recognise, them, and were set down a 3 insubordinate. Some Inspectors look upon themselves simply as inspectors, and if they notice anything which they wish corrected, at once have the good manners to convey their wish quietly to the master or mistress; but others usurp the teacher's place, and administer reproof and even punishment, thus weakening the teacher's authority. Such behaviour is not likely to discover what good there is in the children. In fact, it is not too much to say that the good working of the machinery of State education depends almost entirely on the Inspectors. Badmachinery may be made to do its best by good Inspectors, but good machinery will be of very little use with bad Inspectors. And if it is true that the general results of the teaching in North Canterbury are not satisfactory, I should be much more inclined to attribute it to bad arrangements and bad Inspectors,- than to" any negligence on the part of those who teach. I am not a schoolmaster myself, but I have the pleasure of knowing a great many teachers, and I don't know any class of working men and women who are, as a rule, so hard-working and so conscientious. —lam, &c, B. A.