OTAGO EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2412, 24 May 1900, Page 37

OTAGO EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE.

■ The annual meeting of the Otago Educa- ■ tional Institute was held in the Normal School 'on Monday. Mr W. Eudey (president) oc- " cupied the chair, and there were 34- members present. Apologies for absence were for- • warded by Inspector Fitzgerald and Mr Gray (Normal School). THE PHESIDENTIAL ADDHESS. 1 - The chairman vacated the chair, which was taken by Mr Grant, vice-president. The President then proceeded to read his presidential address. He referred to the loss sustained by the institute by the fact that their president (Mr J. A. Valentine) had left the province and in the withdrawal of Mr Garrow from the teaching profession. The cause of education had also sustained a loss by the death of Mr J. L. Ferguson, late head master of the Albany street School. One of the main ' events of the year, as far as the institute was concerned, was the passing of 'the new constitution of the New Zealand Educational Institute at its meeting in Timaru in January last. There were many points in the constitution which required the closest attention, and 'it was the imperative duty of each member to thoroughly understand the rules and regulations under which he was enrolled. The district constitution touched them just now more closely, and he trusted that the members would give their closest attention to the passing of it; for Ihirtgs could not go on the lax method of past years now that the institute was a registered and- corporate body. i Another very, important event in the educa- " tional world had been -the promise given by lhe Minister of Education that the Govern- , roent intended shortly to bring in a bill to provide a colonial scale of salaries'. Perhaps -a more important thing than this was that •teachers were working this year under a new set of standard regulations. Teachers now "«njoyed or suffered according to their diffe"rent views the blessing or curse of freedom 'of classification throughout their schools. Teachers, and especially head teachers, had ffound that their work had not been made lighter by the change. The syllabus contained tho old number of subjects plus the indefinite "hand work," which no one in Otago at least would venture to take up this year. With regard to the s-yllabus, the Minister informed the council at "Tiraaru that it was to be regarded as tentative, and urged teachers to give it a fair trial under the new conditions. After that thej' would be in a better position to make recommendations for changes. This syllabus- 1 had been in force for 20 years, and the ci nest ion naturally arose : " Is what was suiiabio for the needs of the colonial youth 20 yeors ago suitable for their present needs?" Some thought that it required remodelling. Mr Eudey asked teachers to carefully consider two points in considering' the alterations they would suggest : — (1) The current popular need in the matter of education ; and (2) the mental capacity of the children for whom the syllabus was intended. '-The man in the street would give the»popxilar need, but the opinion o£ experts in teaching was also necessary to state distinctly what the- . pupil was fit to receive and what he was not fit to receive. After dealing with the new regulations ao affecting the pupil, .Mr Eudey held that the real problem suggested by the new regulations was the making of the teacher, for in the future teachers would have to be school , teachers, and not ' school keepers : educators and not instructors. He thought it apparent to all that the first necessity was to be sure that . natural aptitude and sympathy were not lack.ing. The teacher must have a strong, svm- • pathetic imagination and a taste for teaching. He mufit be a lover and, a student of children and' of children's ways more than a lover of educational theories: be able to look at things - - with the eyes of a child, so as to thoroughly appreciate the child's difficulties in approach- - ing the unknown - and too often abstruse problems laid before its immature mind. • Given the gifts, the next necessity was a - liberal education. The broadening and enlightening influence of a liberal education on a teacher's life could not be over-estimated. ' His horizon was wide and constantly widening. He was lifted from the narrow rut in ' which his daily duties compelled him. to run, and he saw nature and man with' eyes that. were not troubled with myopia. The third requisite was training. How many teachers 'kept up their course of training after they had been appointed to their first school. This post-college training, which was the real mak- ■ ing of the teacher, would proceed simultaneously on two track?— the theoretical and the practical. In the first, he would require to make a "more critical and careful study of the history of educational aims and methods than was possible during his career at the training college, and his mind was now more matured and getting better fitted cby by day to carry on this work successfully. It was - absolutely necessary for him to study the history of education, but also the best ' method of teaching, and to do this the teacher must he a student of child life. As educa- ■ tors in the truest sense,.- teachers must consider the child in a trinity of inspects — physically, ■ intellectually, and morally. He would .not attempt to tell them what -they all -knew with regard to the necessity of building up the body as well as the mind, and how strength - or weakness in the former reflected itself in the latter ; or how, if tbey neglected the culture of the body and devoted thems.elves exclusively to that of the intellect, they might do irreparable damage to the moral side. He thought that this pointed to an important subiect.for tepchers' study — namely, child life and psychology, — and for convenience they might pfroup the two tinder the general term of psychology. The country that had of late years taken the lead in the study of psychology aa affecting -school life was undoubtedly America. Germany came in as a fair second, but Britain was a long way behind, and wes just being roused from its lethargy by the action of America and Germany. In the , States much attention had of late years been •devoted to what they called the " new education," which had evolved out of the older recitation methods in the fchools, where thf pupil learnt everything ?nd the teacher hea-d the lesson reneatecl. America had been assisted out of this method by the energy and ability of her be^t men in the sphere of .educational psychology. The leaders of the movement had impressed on their disciples that the study of psychology was abpohitely necessary to the success of the teacher. They did not fay that a good psychologist wn" or would be a good teacher. He anight be merely a school keeper; for they recognised that to a great extent the tepcher was born, and then rr.ade : that the art of teaching s^raw up in the schoolroom out of inventiveness and sympathetic concrete observation. Mr Eudey went on to saj' that he did not want hi-? - -hearers to think that 'ie would ha^e them all become profound psychologist?, but they should know enough of the principles of tho subject to rai?e them pbove the level of school keepers cmd enable ihem to 'become school teacher-. Continuing, he r?id: Withthis knowledge of psychology and study of child life, we should have a greater resaeel

for childhood and learn the truth of what Froebel said — viz., " That ' imperfect ' childhood'has really a perfection of its own, that the child stage of development has its own laws and requires a special treatment which is not the same as that properly applied to older persons." And we should pass out of that state in which most of us often find ourselves — namely, blaming the child for stupidity in not grasping our methods, instead of blaming our own stupidity in setting the matter before the pupil in a method unsuited for the stage of his development. Having considered our pupils, with regard to their powers psychologically, with regard to their age, their environment, and the thousand and one other things that the teacher must consider, we shall come back and rest upon that greatest of all teaching rules: "To become good teachers, we must teach well," and feel that the best that we can do and the highest that is expected of us is to take the pupil by the hand, to feel the way with him, and not merely fob him. Eacl: teacher must then work out his own salvation, and will then become his own manual of method, and feel, with Barnett, that the endeavour to lay down rigid rules cf procedure in teaching is a serious error in education. On the practical side, he must be constantly making experiments, for education is a science, and though at present only an empirical science, the greatest advance will be made if the subject is taken i experimentally. You will find in your study J of educational reformers that they were all j experimeniez\s, and by no means content to ! follow in the footsteps of their predecessors. ! But the teacher must be on his guard in making | his experiments, for before many are made he ■' may find out that the results often work out 1 differently from what he expected, or perhaps i intended. He nvus6 remember that he is mak- .' injf^his experiments, not like the chemist or pbvsieist on inanimate nature, that has power : only to work in certain lines, but on animate • nature in the shape of very lively colonial ■ youngsters, who will, if they think they i>r3 being experimented upon, verj" quickly vitiate tae result. The experiments also tend to be ■vitiated if the teacher does no l make a study of the cbild and the child mind, j?.v.d doe? * not consider psychology especially in its re- ' lation to school work. And rast here the two paths, the t'.eoietical and ibe practical, will ! run together. " .But we have enough to do to get through liie overburdened syllabus, without making experiments," may be the menial 1 comment of more than one of my hearers. ' JMy reply is, " Make these experiments, not ' hastily and rashly, but carefully and patiently ; begin them after much calculation and consideration of the reagents, you are going to I use, and I think you will find, as a^l true educationists have found, that they will well " repay you for all the trouble you may take. J An experiment, if properly performed, always | teaches some lesson. If it does not show us what to do, it often shows us what not to do ; j and that is of great and vital importance in ; education, where -time is just as <£ great value ; as it is in anything else. If you have by ex- • j periment leariit what not to do, you are on j the read to success — your track is marked out ! more clearly for you, and it will soon \ become plain and easy, and, instead of a drudgery, a pleasure and a blessing, j All vrho have studied the history of education I in our own timers must agree thai though we j are .still far from the ideally perfect system, i recent experience shows that we shall ap- [ pioaeh that desirable timo more quickly if ' we do our utmost to reduce didactic teaching and encourage heuristic teaching. The term is , new, and was introduced by Professor Meiklejohn; but the thing itself is known to us, though perhaps only to ' a small extent. i Heuristic methods of teaching are methods ! which invohe our placing pupils as far as possible in the attitude of , the discoverer, me1 thods which involve their finding out instead tof merely being told about things. They ars ! therefore the direct antithesis of the' didactic methods so largely employed in our schools. i It should be remembered that the great object^ in view in education is to develop the ; powei of initiative, and in all respects to form the 'character of the pupil. Pe^talozzi was ! filled with remorse when he found he had 1 given a pupil a conception, instead of induc1 ing him to find it himself. So should every-, 'teacher feel. If they did so "feel, schools would then become educating institutions, and the didactic instruction which poisons our > existence at the present time would be recog- . niseel as a fell disease. Dr Armstrong, of the ,' Central Technical School, London, and one of the strongest supporters of heuristic methods in England, says: — "My experience : tt-aehes me tnat it is the grossest libel on young scholars to say that it is useless to ex- > pect them to reason for themselves in the way necessary to follow out the simplest research ; but, unfortunately, if you substitute teachers for pupils, this is too often a true statement, and here the supreme difficulty of properly carrying out heuristic teaching comes in. , It is the teachers who are preventing advance. Let us teachers recognise this, but do not let us overlook or misrate the powers of young children. Let us try what they can do, and ! if we do not at first succeed, let us try and try | again. And we bhall surely succeed if we can only adopt this attitude. The whole policy of the teacher's duty is summed up in one- little word, yet the most expressive in I the English language. It is to train pupils iTO do." It is needless to say young scholars j cannot always be expected to find out every- ! thing themselves, but the facts must always i bo so presented to them that the process by j which results are obtained is made RifSciently j I clear. Dr Armstrong contends that heuristic methods should always precede didactic, so that pupils may obtain an understanding of i method and the power of using it. Then ■ scientific habits of mind, scientific ways of ! working must become ingrained habits from { which it is impossible to escape. It is very e'eor from this that kindergarten becomes the • foundation of school work, and that kinder1 gartea methods and principles should dominate our schoois from the infant department to Class X. Given all thefe points, natural aptitude and sympathy, a liberal education, a course of apprenticeship and period of training in college and a fuller measure ol training , in the study 01 the history of education and educational aims-, and of psychology and the training implied in the making of experiments, you have not yet before you the i^ertect or perfected teacher. There are a hundred other points, all neces^-try to the making of the teachers, of which I have not fpoksa. ".Bur the teachei you have outliied does nol exist,"' you are ready to ±ay ; and I will add. "I am afraid he will not exist for mai.y a century to come. He is the ideal tcacl.r-r. But here in our prof?s°ion, as elsewhere, tr-e idcnl ia the leal, nurl lhe leal the ideal." — 'Applnu.-e.) Mr D R. White, in mov'ng n hearty vote of thanks to Mr Eudey to*- hii p .-evidential addres-, said that lie was qvite sure I'vl tbose ! X3re-ent would ogres wit'i him that itr Eudoy had done a very gre:t cle\l_fc l e\l_fo > +he insti'uta in tne paM:. — (Applause.) He did i.o* know how many years he was secretary and a member of the Commiutee of Manrge.nent. but he (Mr Whitr) would like to ppcak hi hi^h Jeam of the work Mr Evdey had done fm- the Duucdin foannli ntid for the Otp^o Educational

Institute. He thought thai for many years they had scarcely recognised Mr Eudey's work in the tangible way it ought to have been recognised, and this was sometimes the case with those who did their work quietly. Had it been done more noisily perhaps it would not have been thus passed over. He took some of the blame himself for not saying publicly how much the branch owed to Mi- Eudey's diligent and assiduous labours as secretary. He had very fittingly closed those labours by his presidential address, which was a -\ cry thoughtful and carefully thought-out deliverance. Mr Eudey had sketched an ideal with reference to teachers that they ought not to forget. As one who knew a little about the ideal he had sketched, he (Mr White) was wholly in sympathy with all that had been said with regard to the training of teachers to study their pupils. He agreed with the statement that under the reformed regulations the teachers had conferred on them greater responsibilities, as well as greater privileges. The responsibilities had undoubtedly been increased. Whether the privileges would be equally beneficial or not depended on the fact that, in order to exercise them properly, they would have to wholly recast the present syllabus of instruction. lie believed' that the inspectorial duties had been unduly taken from the inspectors' shoulders. — (Hear, hear.) He believed it was the work, technically and professionally, of the inspector to examine and report on tl>e public school 0 . Now, it was a kind of go-i's-you-plea^e with the inspector. He might or might not, as his judgment dictated. He (M<- White) thought that the education regulations ought to make it imperative for an inspector to examine a school in every subj eel thoroughly once a year. The head master wn» now made both head roaster nnd inspector, and, however well he might do ifc. his work was all t ! -.e better for having an honest criticism and an outside independent expression of opinion concerning it. He referred not or.ly to primary schools, but to high schools and to universities. Mr Davidson seconded the motion, and Messrs A. M. Barnett, James Jeffery, and J. M. E. Gar row also spoke. The vote ol 1 hanks was unanimously passed, and the meeting adjourned. -