EDUCATION IN NELSON PEOVINCE

Colonist, Volume XII, Issue 1215, 31 August 1869, Page 3

EDUCATION IN NELSON PEOVINCE

REPORT OF THE INSPECTOR OF PUBLIC

SCHOOLS,

(From the Provincial Government Gazette, Aug. 17.

TO THE ChAIBMAN OF THE CENTRAL BOAED OF

Education.

Sib, —The Report that I have now the honor of laying before the Board is, to a certain extent, a compromise between the plan adopted last year, which compelled me to enter at some length into the special merits and demerits of each of our Provincial schools, and such a more general Bummary of the result of the year's work as I have occasionally drawn up in previous years. lam aware that special objections may be raised against either method. A detailed report is usually chargeable with a wearisome sameness, while a general review

is apt to degenerate into a mere essay on primary education, having but slight reference to the particular system on which it is founded, and with which it ought almost exclusively to deal. By way of avoiding the inconveniences attending both of the plans referred to, I purpose touching briefly on each of the subjects usually included in our school course, naming, at the same time, such of the schools as have been most conspicuous, during the past year, .for success or failure in each branch. Where faults that were pointed out in my last report have been remedied, or where a marked improvement has taken place in any respect, I shall endeavor to do justice to the teachers by whom these changes for the better have been effected. Reading. —l am unable to report any general improvement in this, by far the most important branch of an elementary education. Though the number of scholars above twelve years old has increased by nearly 100, there is a slight falling off in the number of readers marked "good," as compared with last year. Several reasons may be assigned for this. I find, for instance, that in some of our schools only one reading lesson a day is given ; but, whatever else is left out, it is clear to me that all the scholars should read twice daily, even though no explanation is given, either during or after one of the lessons. Indeed, a plan that has been adopted in one instance, according to which a wholf day in each week is devoted to the practice of read ing, to the exclusion of everything else, seems to be, on the whole, preferable to the partial neglect of this branch that I have noticed. I have observed, too, that teachers occasionally attempt to give out a lesson in dictation while hearing a class read, the result being that both operations are badly performed.

In four of our schools the reading is so exceptionally good as to call for special commendation. I refer to the Ist Division of Hardy-street Girls' School, to the Eichmond Girls' and Boys' Schools, and to the Ist Division of the Motueka School. On the other hand, the reading at Stoke, to which I made unfavorable reference in. my last report, is positively worse than it was before, the number of scholars who can, by any stretch of indulgence, be classed as good, having dwindled down from twelve to seven. Waimea West Viliage School ranks equally low in this respect, the falling off in the number of good readers, from sixteen to seven, being relatively greater than even at Stoke. At Waimea West (North Division School) the children read fluently enough, but bawl out the lesson in a manner that is very distressing to the hearer, and I should imagine, not less so to the readers themselves. The children of the 2nd Division of Hardy-street School have run into the opposite extreme, and read in so low a tone that much of the lesson is quite inaudible. Where a fault;of this kind is of longstanding in a Echool, much time and patience will be required to remedy it. This has been done, nevertheless, most thoroughly, both at Upper and Lower Wakefield Schools, where the habit of reading indistinctly was at one time so deeply rooted as to appear almost incurable. I have remarked with pleasure that poetry is more generally read than it was formerly, and that the practice of committing verse to memory, Btrongly recommended in my last report, is gaining ground. Writing is, on the whole, better taught than reading. In only two schools, Eanzau and Waimea West Village, is the penmanship so unmistakably bud as to require special mention. In the former school there are but four, in the latter two good writers. The greatest improvement in this respect, during the year, has been effected at Lower Wakefield, and at Eichmond Boys' School, the writing of the latter school especially, which was notoriously careless before the appointment of the present master, being now fully equal to that of our most advanced schools. It is worth noting that the two schools where writing is taught almost entirely by means of copy-heads set by the masters, Lower Moutere and WuhneaWest (North Division) continue to excel in penmanship, though this is mainly due, doubtless, in both instances, to superior teaching capacity. The more advanced scholars might practice writing without copies more than they do, with advantage, aa writing exclusively in imitation of an engraved model has a tendency to cramp the hand-writing, and will be found, I fear, in after life, to be somewhat like learning to swim with corks. I am glad to see that making out bills is now a common exercise. Formerly, parents who had kept their children at school, frequently at great inconvenience, until they were thirteen or fourteen, complained, and not without reason, that on leaving Bchool the pupils could not draw up the simplest account in a presentable fashion. Many parents, in the more remote districts especially, being still unable to supply the educational deficiencies of their children, to whom, on the contrary, they frequently look for help, it is all the more desirable that the arts of making out an account intelligibly, and of writing and properly directing a letter, should be carefully taught in the first class, at least, of every provincial school, the chances being that these things, if not learnt at school, will not be learnt at all.

Arithmetic, at one time the weakest, is now the strongest point in most of our schools. For several years I have had the pleasure of recording a steady advance in this branch, and I again find, at the close of the educational year, an increase of a third in number of the scholars who can work questions in Proportion and Practice—a fair addition to those who have some knowledge of Vulgar and Decimal Fractions, and a considerable accession to the numbers in the column for compound rules. Collective teaching, and the intelligent use of the black board have almost superseded the old-fashioned Bjstem of teaching arithmetic mechanically and by book alone, of which I had to complain so frequently in former reports. In several of the more elementary schools, indeed, books on arithmetic are tiling dispensed with altogether, or are used merely as text-books.

The Ist Division of Bridge-street Boys' School still retains its old superiority in this branch, the mental arithmetic being remarkably good. Among the schools thai, have made the greatest progress in arithmetic during the past year, Hampden-street, Haven-road, and St. Mary's Boys Schools deserve special notice. In the3e three schools, arithmetic is most intelligently and caiefully taught. Grammar, -which, as at present taught in onr schools usually means nothing more than the ability to pick, out the parts of speech in a short sentence with tolerable accuracy, and, in some instances, to give the mood and tense of a verb, does not now assume the prominence that it formerly did in our annual returns —a prominence quite disproportionate, either to the importance of the subject itself, °r to the results attained. The teaching of this Wnch is now confined, in most cases, to the first class in a school; and the text-book most commonly Used—Cornwell'e Grammar—though exceedingly simple, contains quite as much as it it necessary for young children to learn, or, in other words, as much as they are at all likely to retain. I have \ observed that here and there the vicious plan of Riving a class bad grammar to correct is still retained. I regard this as only a degree less mischievous than the now exploded system of giving children examples of false spelling to correct, by which the eye of the learner was systematically misled. The time thus lasted would be infinitely better employed in setting

a class to give a short account of the day's lesson, in the best English at their command, to be subsequently corrected by the teacher. This, with

a few technical lessons on grammar, would go further towards enabling the scholars to express themselves in decent English than the learning by heart of a hundred rules from Lindky Murray or his successors —rules that almost invariably fail to help the young grammarian when the time comes for applying them. Geography. —I hare every reason to be satisfied with the way in which this branch is now taught in most of our schools. In two or three instances, I have observed a tendency to enter too much into detail, and to burden the learner's memory with, the names of obscure and unimportant places 5 but as a rule, our teachers, very properly, confine themselves to the broad outlines of geography; and I have taken care both that the books on this subject supplied to the schools should be of a very elementary

character, and that no school should be without a good set of maps. In order to arrive at a rough estimate of the comparative proficiency of the different schools in geography, I have this year asked the first class in eac'i school, to describe the course of a traveller from Calcutta to London, via Suez. The replies that I received, in nearly every instance, showed that the children had a tolerably clear idea of the relative bearings of the different countries, seas, &c, on the route, and that their knowledge

was not confined, as was formerly too frequently the case, to Europe only. Map-drawing might be more generally practised than it is, the cost of mappaper being the only objection that [ have heard urged. But the object of this exercise, I take it, is

not so much, to cultivate the art of drawing, or to

produce a pretty picture, as to train the eye to form correct estimates of the relative size and bear-

ings of the principal countries. A comparatively rude sketch on the slate would be sufficient for this

purpose. The art of drawing an outline map from memory is also well worth cultivating, as I have seen boys, after a little practice, come surprisingly near to the true outline of a country, without looking at a map. History. —lt has become a question among the writers ot' the day, not only to what extent history should be taught in primary undenominational schools, but whether history should be taught in -such schools at all. And it must be acknowledged that grave objections lie against any plan of teaching this subject which, avowedly aims at conciliating ail denominations. Tke school history that can give such an account of the times of the Tudors as will reconcile the conflicting pretensions of Bom mist and Protestant, without omitting the niost important and interesting events of those clays—most indeed, of what makes the record worth preserving at all—is yet unwritten ; and must, I fear, from the conditions of the problem, for ever remain so. Two illustrations of the difficulty of treating this subject without falling into errors, either of commission or of omission, will perhaps suffice. The writer of Little Arthur's History of England (which, though loosely written, is, next to Scott's Tales of a Grandfather, the most popular and taking child's history that I have seen) attempts to dispose of several knotty theological questions, by a passing sneer at " old rags and bones;" while Miss Corner, with a refinement of cautiousness that goes far towards neutralising the usefulness of her otherwise excellent history, omits among other things, from her account of James the Second's reign, all mention of the trial of the seven Bishops. This may be judicious, but it is hardly history. I am inclined to think, however, that after making ample allowance for unavoidable shortcomings, it is desirable that children of eleven or twelve, should learn something of the outlines of English history at school; that they should be put in possession of the more salient points, such the succession of sovereigns, the civil wars and revolutions; and that they should be furnished with a few pegs, in the shape of dates, to hang an ampler clothing of facts upon ; even if their historical reading in after life should be confined to the pages of Scott and Bulwer. The excellent practice, now common in our schools, of giving a class a short but connected narrative to write; the substance, in fact, of the day's lesson, is one to which the simple school history in use lends itself more readily than any other kind of reading. Prizes and Class Registers. —l took occasion in my last year's report, to impress upon teachers the necessity of keeping a daily record of the standing of each scholar, in the upper classes at least, as the only means of ensuring a just distribution of the prizes so liberally awarded in our schools. I also complained of the needless prodigality with which prizes were showered upon the scholars. It is disheartening to have to report that the lapse of another year lias brought but little improvement in either respect. Not more than three or four additional schools keep anything in the shape of a class register, while I have myself, in more than one instance, reluctantly and under protest, given several prizes to each of three scholars in a class of half-a--dozen. For these, and for several other reasons, I have come to the conclusion that examinations for prizes by an Inspector are absolutely mischievous and ought to be discontinued. In the first place, they form no part of an Inspector's duties, which consist, as it appears to me, rather in forming an estimate of the relative proficiency of one school as compared with "another (allowing for difference of age, irregularity of attendance, and the fifty other causes that may affect the comparison), than in testing the comparative merits of the scholars in each class. So wide is the diversity between the two kinds of examination required, and so distinct are the objects aimed at, that I find it almost impossible, in practice, to combine them in a single examination. To the objection that in some of the remoter districts men who are both willing and able to act as examiners are scarce, it may be replied that where a class register is kept, or where a system of giving marks is adopted, very little is left for the examiners to do, always assuming that the records are fairly kept, and to suppose the contrary would, I am persuaded, be a gross injustice to our teachers as a body. I see no good reason why the time of an Inspector, whose duties must increase with the extension of our system, should be wasted in laborously ascertaining the comparative merits of a class of children who are stumbling over words of one syllable, merely to save a teacher the trouble of carrying out a simple and effectual plan by which the same object might be far more surely attained, but- which he is too indolent or too conceited to put into practice. Nor can a Local Committee which declines to provide, as it has an undoubted right to do, that a proper record o? the progress of each pupil shall be kept in the school, decline also the task of providing suitable examiners to award the prizes. School Sours and Holidays.—Different regulations prevail in almost every education [district as to school hours and holidays, and I was at one time disposed to recommend the adoption of an uniform rule in these respects, for the whole of the Province. I have since been led to believe, however, that local convenience has been studied when the various times for opening and closing school were fixed, aad that it would be injurious to the true inter»sts of our schools to attempt to enforce any thing like general uniformity. In the country districts, for instance, tho hay and corn harvest, and potato-digging, seriously interfere with the attendance of the children, and it has been found convenient that the holidays should be so arranged as to fall within those periods. Again, where the children have several miles to walk to reach school, aR not unfrequently happens, it would be found practically impossible to enforce their attendance at such hours as seem most convenient in ordinary cases, say, from nine to twelve in the morning, and from one to three in the afternoon. But though it is not necessary that the times at which the holidays are taken should be the same throughout the Province, I Bee no reason why some nearer approach to uniformity should not be made in the duration of holidays. In some districts no mid-winter holidays whatever are allowed, while the mid-summer holidays vary in length from a week to a month in schools within close proximity to one another. Immemorial usage has sanctioned the division of the school year into two periods, distinctly marked by holidays of greater or less duration ; and tho unmistakable signs of flagging energieson the part of both teachers and scholars towards the close of

each lialf yenr, show the expediency of such a break to the monotony of school work. It is difficult to lay down any rule on this subject that shall be universally applicable, but I think that the interval allowed should in no case be less than a fortnight in winter, and three weeks in summer. In large schools these periods might well be extended, not only without injury, but with absolute advantage to the scholars.

Assisted Schools. —An interesting experiment is now being carried on at the West Coast. It was felt that the attempt to proclaim education districts and to impose rates in places like Charleston, for instance, where gold-mining is actually going on in the heart of the township, and where a Jarge proportion of the population is dwelling in tents, would be found to be beset with all sorts of difficulties in practice. It has been resolved, therefore, to grant a smull subsidy to each of the two schools already established in Charleston, and to provide books and maps at the outset; the teacher's salary being supplemented by school fees, not to exceed a scale fixed by the Board. An offer of similar assistance has also been made to a school to be established at Brighton. Such schools are of course open to inspection, and it is distinctly understood that the grant will be continued only so long as the schools are efficiently conducted. What renders the success or failure of this experiment a matter of so much importance to the community is the certainty that any considerable diminution of the annual Provincial grant would be attended with one of three results— either a large proportion of the sitaller schools must be closed, or it would become necessary to impose a higher education rate, or some modification of the plan above described must be adopted generally. Numbers and Daily Attendance. —Four hundrec additional names have been added to our rolls for the past year, the total number of children who attended schools at any time during 1867-8, being 2678 as compared with 3078 in 1868-9. 2330 children attended school during the last quarter. The average daily attendance ior the past year amounted to sixty-seven and a-half per cent, of the whole number on the rolls during each quarter, and is not only higher than the average attained in any previous year, but contrasts very favorably with the attendance in other Provinces and Colonies. For instance, in 1868 the returns for the Province of Canterbury showed that 4178 children were on the rolls, the daily attendance being 1845, or only forty-four per cent. ; while in Victoria, the average for 1867-8 was fifty-seven per cent.—that is to say, thirteen and a-half, and ten per cent, respectively, lower than in Nelson. In the case of England the data are somewhat imperfect and very confusing, but I see that according to statistics furnished by the Commissioners in 1861, taken from five pairs of specimen districts, the daily average attendance at that time did not exceed fifty-six. These figures will serve to show how far the complaints made, not only by opponents of our system, but occasionally by the teachers themselves, that the children attend school with extreme irregularity, are well founded. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your obedient servant, W. C. Hodgson Inspector of Schools. Nelson, August sth, 1869.