THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 12870, 4 January 1906, Page 7

THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE.

THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE. Per Press Association. INVERCARGILL, January a. The New Zealand Educational Institute met in annual conference here to-day. After being welcomed to the towsi by tie. Mayor, Mr Scandrett, and others, Mr T. H. Gill (Wellington) thanked those who had ispoken for the cordial -welcome. climate was amply compensated for by the rwanhth of the welcome'they had; received. He expressed his •thanks to the "Institute? for electing him president, this being the first .opportunity of doing so as he was'not present when elected. Mr Gill spoke eloquently of the hard burden borne by those who had grbwn o?d la the-service. A section of the members .though that the Institute should be conducted more ob the lines of a trades union, but to this he strongly objected, not so much because they were a profession and not- a trade, but because an organisation which tended to cultivate selfish interests only was in his view of ephemeral value. The department, the boards, the committees. ,the inspectors and teachers, must all be subordinated to the well-being of .the chMren.lUThe attitude they took up and the arguments they advanced might not commend themselves to the body.of: the people, = .or. even to the'more thoughtful, but it was only by strenuously insisting on the reforms they desired and supporting them, by all the reasons they could adduce, that t&ey.would succeed. Their position. ±OO, the stronger when the object they had in view was the improvement of the education system, and not their own advancement. He mentioned the reforms that had been brought about, and which the Institute had advocated strongly, though •he did- : hot. claim that they were entirely due to.theif efforts. Far was it from him to belittle l-the work of -the Department which -had 'accomplished wonders in coordinating primary, secondary and technical education, and in producing a syllabus generally conceded to be a distinct advance on its predecessors. 7 There was a great deal more to do. . A reform which was pressing _, was that the pupil teacher system be alfeldidvnot go far enough, and ha , proposed to add that the average number of children to'every certificated teacher be forty-five. He spoke highly of the - nfewByllabus■; which endeavoured to lead the children along the .path which nature had indicated—the path of patient observation. Experiment, the accurate setting out- of facts observed er experimented with, and the construction of theories to account for such facts, made demands on jmpil teachers which were unreasonable, and also on assistant teachers who were expected to teach on an average sixty pupils. The pupil teacher system was ojrite out of keeping with the steady advance of educational progress. In America it was recognised that a teacher should not be called upon to have larger classes than 50 or 40. He did not say that teachers could not teach and discipline larger, classes, but Lie unhesitatingly affirmed that where teachers were quite usabls to cttne into ck>.-e personal contact with each'child' aad u.«-"the means best calculated to develop the latent powers of each child, there must be an absence of intelligent' effort to draw out

the possibilities of the children. Although a large; numbers#f the pupil teachers hajd passed t-hsirmatriculation Examination at the commencement of their careers, they "were unfit to have charge of classes, as they were ignorant of the fundamental principles on "which sound methods "were based, while they were quite unable to appreciate the problem of training the intellectual and emotional life, of the children. The greater problem of character-building, the true aim of education, was a." terra incognita" to them. The most important years of a child's life were those when his education should be entrusted to the most skilfulteachers it" was possible to procure, and there was no justification, save false economy for handing over their education to untrained) boys and girls. Many pupil teachers had done good work and many headmasters had produced highly satisfactory results from an examination point of view, but would not a. much -clearer insight into the problem of education have been reached if the teaching had; been solely in the hands of trained men and women? The conclusion to be drawn from the new syllabus was tiie necessity for intelligent purposeful teaching and classes of not more than 45, so that the cultivation of the spirit of enquiry, or rather ike fostering of that spirit, might be assisted in every legitimate way.

Mr Gill concluded by suggesting that ; the pupil teacher system be abolished, and the conference passed a resolution to that effect.

The following remits were adopted, others being negatived or withdrawn—(Wanganui) that the Department be asked to frame a regulation that head teachers hold prordotior.cesaminations at the.-end of the calendar year: (Otago) that the Institute again urge the necessity for a-"Council of Education for the colony; (Wanganui) that the inspectorate be centralised; (Otago') tliat the pupil teacher system should be abolished; (North Canterbury) that instructions defining the syllabus be issued to inspectors.