WAIMATUKU.

Otago Witness, Issue 2373, 24 August 1899, Page 29

WAIMATUKU.

'August 14. — Messrs Huston Brothers srlsited us with their marvellous biograph and (microphone. The former is a great improvesnent on the cinematograph and the latter on th« phonograph. Most peculiar was the seaßation felt when looking at the panoramic vi*w fc>f Jerusalem taken from a moving railway train. One actually thought oneself ijs. a train moving on and viewing the passing seenwy. Mr Huston had, I think, the largest house ' J have saen here at such, an entertainment. Educational. — Our school again went through the inspector's annual examination last Friday. The result is not yet known, but I understand there are more failures than hay* been here for some years. Not actually bona fide failures, for most of those who failed were new pupils from other schools, two of iheat entering but three days before the examination. I hear on good authority that this is the last inspector's examination under existing conditions; for the abolition of the individual pass system is a near certainty. What the Order-in-Council may be is not yet known ; but I suspect the teacher will be instructed to hold examinations at stated intervals, the result of which will be registered for the information of parents, committee, and inspectors. Tha inepectors will, as now, visit schools twice a year — once for inspection, the other for examiination, not, as now, to fail or pass pupils, but to p report on the teachers' discretion in advancing pupils. Thus the inclination to advance pupils to please parents or to neglect dullards will be detected and reported.' One great blessing resulting from this new method will be that the tendency to cram a certain amount of work into a certain time will be abolishei. and no child be advanced to another subject till one is mastered. That the child will be better educated is obvious. Of course lam anticipating, for what the next examinatic/i ma> be no one now knows.