To the Editor of The Colonist.

Colonist, Volume XII, Issue 1174, 25 December 1868, Page 3

To the Editor of The Colonist.

Sib,—Luring the presentation of prizes to the children attending the Town Schools, I had occasion to leave the Hall for a few minutes. On my return, I was surprised to find that one of my fellow-examiners, Mr. Lee, was refreshing himself, after the (oils of the' week, by a lively series of criticisms on tho Inspector of Schools. I heard only the latter part of Mr. Lse's address, and felt that while the tasre of his remarks was, to say the least, somewhat questionable, when the circumstances of time aad place were taken info consideration, anything like a rejoinder on my part, in the ,presence of the children who had just been examined, would only make matters worse. As far asl could make it out, the gist of what Mr. Leo said was this : —" That the Inspector had taken too prominent a part in the examination, —that he had reversed or disregarded the decisions of his coadjutor*,—that he had done a part at least, of his work injudiciously, that the whole affair was cut. and.dried before-hand, —and that'he ought not'to have been present nt an examination of this kind at all, as- it was partly intended as a check upon himself." -. I regret that those members of the Town Committee who were present, and who were;familiar, I presume, with the facts, should, by their Bilen.ee, have given a certain sanction to these charges, and thus have pufc me, as it were, ! upon my defence. The! following is a plain statement of the case. Four gentleman were invited by the Local Committee to assist me in examining tho Town Schools, three days only being allowed for tho work. One of the .four was present at the Bridge-street school during a partion of the first, day's examinati.jn, but took'so active part in the proceedings. -A second, examiner, after an hour or two's work, was called away on urgent business, and did not return. The examination of the two large schools in Bridge-slreefc then devolved us a matter of necessity, upon Mr. Leo and myself. ThroughoutI.the da) 71 requested Mr. Lee (0 examine the higher classes in botii schools, faking the juniors myself. I also set the first class ata^tirno when they wero unemployed, an arithmetic-, paper, which I intended to be a sort of test of-the comparative proficiency of our Provincial schools in thi9 brunch. During Tuesday und Wednesday, I had tho valuable ussistance of tho second master of the College, Mr. Miickay," who also, by my desire, undertook the j examination of the upper classes. Mr. Lee also examined part of the first division of the girls* school on Wednesday morning. ■■ Tins was the whole of the help that I received in J the task of examining seven large schools; half of which would have been passed over altogether by the examiners, had I not taked the prominent part .for which I have been so unexpectedly taken to task. Fever was there a. better instance oi' the wisdom of Talleyrand's warning to his subordinates—"Abova all, gentlemen,—no zeal!" .' The statement that the awards of the examiners were disregnrded is easily disposed of. The class prizes (ns tho Secretary to. the Town Committee explained at the meeting), wero given in strict accordance with the results shown by the class register, a system which I was the first to introdube into our Town schools, and which has now generally superseded the clumsy and inefficient plan of giving prizes on the report of examiners who mat) be careless or incompetent, and who have hitherto been sorely pressed for time. Some of the writing und arithmetic prizes wore awarded by Mr. Mackay and myself conjointly, the arithmetic prize in Bridgestreet school being awarded, I believe, by Mr. Lee. I did not know, until the prizes were presented, who were the successful competitors, in the majority of instances ; I \*as not aware that Mr. Lee ha;l made any other award than the one I have referred lo,—nor do I remember seeing him. take any notes during his examination. A brief reference to the arithmetic paper, which was characterised as an "absurd" paper to put before girls, will suffice, as, fortunately, the matter is removed from tho domain of theory to that of fact. In Hampden-street school, where a largo class of boys and girls (taught, of course, by the same master), attempted these questions, the average performance of the girls as compared with that of the boys was as 7 to 6. References to personal matters are more frequent in the foregoing remarks than I should wish, bur, I could hardly have made my explanations intelligible ■ without them; and I feel that tho system upon which the examination of our town schools and the distribution of prizes hus hitherto been conducted i 3 a question of sufficient public interest to justify me in writing about it, even at considerable length: and it ought not to be forgotten that I am not the aggressor. I am, &c, W. C. Hodgson.