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New Zealand Mail, Issue 426, 10 April 1880, Page 24

The battle of the Standards will be fought again in our schools if the majority of school inspectors coincide in the opinion expressed by Mr. UoßEirc Lee, and such opinions carry weight with those who control our -educational system. In his report, as Inspector of Schools in the W ellington -district, he expresses opinion that two mistakes have been made —one, " in launching the whole scheme of the new Colonial Standards at once, without giving time for the more gradual introduction of additional subjects, and aiiother by including the additional subjects within the standards, instead of adopting the English plan of making provision for their being taught as extra and optional subjects." He further holds opinion that " without a very great expenditure of public money, and possibly not then, teachers -will very seldom be found who are competent to teach many of these subjects," and again, " if extra subjects are included in the standards they must form a part of the pass made by each pupil, and if they form a part of the pass, there is either the extreme difficulty of testing the knowledge of each pupil in each subject, or the manifest unfairness of giving pupils, who have no faculty for acquiring a knowledge of a given subject, the same consideration in marks as those who show a special faculty for it." This amounts to an avowal of belief that if the standards now in vogue are to be maintained in strict •compliance with the regulations under the Education Act, either a new class of teachers must be obtained and a new plan of rapidly imparting instruction devised, or teachers and pupils must " cram " for results, and the inspectors be compelled to generalise their reports in order to gloss over the defects of pupils who,

put to the test, have not the aptitude to acquire knowledge in school lore beyond the limits of elementary instruction. The last result must necessarily follow as a sequence to the rest so long as the increment of teachers' salaries is made dependent on the number of passes annually accomplished under the standards. In Mr. Lees' opinion, as officially expressed in his annual report, the teachers will cordially agree. They find from every-day experience that to attempt to teach the manifold subjects set down in the standards is but to fritter away valuable time in efforts which can but produce meagre and unsatisfactory results; and they know, also, that but a very small proportion of their number have themselves any knowledge of the special subjects they are called upon to teach. For instance, few of them can sing, except in indifferent fashion, fewer still can draw with any claims to artistic effect, fewer still know aught of chemistry, and, as Mr. Lee puts it, for such persons to attempt to impart instruction in these subjects is a " screaming farce." At the best they can but hope to keep a few paces ahead of their pupils, even if they conscientiously practice and prepare for each lesson on special subjects in the intervals between the hours of school duty, and this is certainly not the point aimed at by the promoters of the Education Act. Theoretically the idea is correct that the adoption of high and comprehensive standards in the curriculum of the State schools will stimulate the ability of the teachers and the adaptability of the pupils to receive and retain instruction, but practically it cannot be done at a leap. On the axiom that the occasion always creates the man, the promoters of the Act evidently imagined that they had only to pitch the educational key-note sufficiently high and teachers would respond at once in perfect accord, and with them also their pupils. The results, so far attained, have shown how fallacious was this anticipation. In the majority of instances, the teachers have only attempted to impart instruction in the subjects prescribed, outside the ordinary routine of elementary teaching, in many instances they have frankly admitted their inability to do so, in aU cases they have made out a good case against the frittering away of school hours in a multitude of vain efforts, and in the comparatively few cases wherein conscientious efforts have been made to obey instructions to the letter, the results have neither satisfied the teachers nor the inspectors. Admitting that the examination was made this year, for the first time, in the new Colonial Standards and that the experiment has been a tentative one, yet the results attained are sufficiently conclusive to show that in the upper Standards some modifications must be introduced before any fairly satisfactory results will be achieved. The regulations under the Act, it must be conceded, have been thoughtfully, and with much painstaking impartiality, devised and formulated, and theoretically aim at ideal perfection, but one essential fact in success has been overlooked, viz, the school life of the pupil. Conceding for a moment that the Standards prescribed are well within range of the teaching power of our schools, still the fact cannot be ignored that the average school life of our colonial youths and maidens is all too short to permit of any portion of it being sacrificed to a tendency for mere showiness in teaching, a smattering of many subjects at the sacrifice of elementary instruction thoroughly imparted. It is far more essential that a boy should spell correctly, write a fair running haud, and possess an intelligent conception of arithmetic, than that he should be able to tell the chemical components of the luncheon he brings in his satchel, or the number of bones in his vertebrae. And yet, if the standards are rigorously adhered to, the boy who enters on school life at seven years, and leaves it at fourteen, is supposed in that stage of his young career to have sufficient time to gain fairly good knowledge in a range of subjects which will assuredly occupy all his spare moments, sedulously employed, during the succeeding seven years to

make of any practical utility. With the close of schoolboy days school studies generally end, and the colonial youth is forced to the practical study of every day duties not set down and only remotely provided for in the routine of his school training. Without for a moment attempting to deny the praiseworthy impulse of our legislators and educationists to give practical effect to the theory that education in the State schools should the widest possible range of subjects, and that the sons and daughters of poor and rich should alike obtain the advantages of liberal education, we yet maintain that the educational machinery of the colony is not equal to the strain put upon it. Between the ordinary State schools and the Grammar or High schools there is need for intermediate schools, wherein pupils having the time, and whose parents will pay for their instruction in " special subjects," may be so taught. Mr. Lee, in his report, recommends the initiation of an entirely new plan for the training and tuition of pupil teachers ; instead of their assembling for instruction class during the heat and worry of the day's duties, he proposes that they should assemble at the Normal School, and then at leisure and free from distraction of other duties receive instruction. An expansion of this idea would seem to be the one thing needful for pupils studying for the higher Standards. Give them opportunity and teachers and pupils alike will doubtless give a good account of themselves, but at present that opportunity is wanting, and our school system is in danger of drifting into mere superficiality and barrenness of good results.