EDUCATION: STATE EDUCATION IN THREE AUSTRALIAN STATES AND NEW ZEALAND. REPORT BY MR. P. GOYEN, INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS TO THE OTAGO EDUCATION BOARD.

Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1902 Session I, E-01c

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1902. NEW ZEALAND.

EDUCATION: STATE EDUCATION IN THREE AUSTRALIAN STATES AND NEW ZEALAND. REPORT BY MR. P. GOYEN, INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS TO THE OTAGO EDUCATION BOARD.

Presented to both Houses of the General Assembly by Command of His Excellency.

The Chief Inspector to the Secretary, Otago Education Board. Sir,— Education Office, Dunedin, 27th June, 1902. I have the honour to present the following report on the education systems of South Australia, Victoria, and New South Wales. In South Australia primary schools are divided into two main classes, public schools and provisional schools, all schools having an average attendance under twenty being placed in the latter category. There are about seven hundred schools in the State, and of these about four hundred are provisional schools. According to the regulations, candidates for appointment as provisional teachers are required to give satisfactory proof that they are competent to instruct children in the rudiments of knowledge, and to produce evidence of having obtained practical acquaintance with school-work by attendance for not less than a month at an approved school. This is, of course, the minimum of a provisional teacher's equipment. Most of the provisional schools are, I was informed, taught by men and women who have gone through the pupil-teachers' course, but who, when they were examined, failed to secure full classification. Of the teachers of the public schools about 60 per cent, are placed in Class F, the lowest of the six classes recognised by the Department. It appears, however, from the official returns that a large proportion even of the teachers of low status do work that receives high commendation from the Inspectors, who, for example, place about 70 per cent, of the provisional schools in the highest proficiency group—namely, schools that gained over 75 per cent, of the marks attainable. This high percentage is probably due in great part to the circumstance that the work done in this class of school is for the most part quite elementary. I cannot but think that country districts suffer from the low educational status of the teachers sent to them. Some of the city schools are, I consider, among the best I saw in Australia. The public schools are divided into twelve classes, as follows : —

The head teachers of schools in Classes IX. to XII. may be females. If they are, the salaries are lower than those given above. The following table shows the classes into which provisional schools are divided, and the salary attaching to each class : — I—E. lc.

Class. Average Attendance. Salary of Head Teacher. Class. Average Attendance. Salary of Head Teacher. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. 600 and over 500 to 600 400 to 500 300 to 400 200 to 350 150 to 200 £ £ 420 to 450 390 to 420 360 to 390 330 to 360 300 to 330 270 to 300 VII. VIII. IX. X. XL XII. 100 to 150 75 to 100 50 to 75 40 to 50 30 to 40 20 to 30 £ £ 240 to 270 220 to 240 180 to 210 160 to 180 140 to 160 110 to 140

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About 25 per cent, of the schools of the State are within Classes I. to IX.—that is, a fourth of the head teachers (if male) are in receipt of from £180 to £450 a year. The South Australian Education Department has little to do with the secondary education of the State. It has provided for the teaching of secondary subjects in the Sixth Class of its large schools and established in Adelaide an Advanced School for Girls and an Agricultural School for Boys, and that is all. The fee for the first is £2 15s. per quarter, and that for the second is Is. a week. The first is a well-equipped institution; but the second is poor even as a makeshift, and its name is a misnomer. In Victoria there are over 2,000 primary schools, called State schools, which are taught by about 4,300 teachers, comprising adult teachers, pupil-teachers, and monitors. At the end of 1898, the latest year for which I have returns, the numbers were, — Number of schools ... ... ... ... ... ... 2,009 Number of teachers of all classes ... ... ... ... ... 4,212 Number of pupil-teachers and monitors ... ... ... ... 1,765 Hence the number of adult teachers was 2,447, Of these teachers 18 were unclassified, and 984, or 40 per cent, of the adult teaching-staff, held the lowest certificate issued by the Department —namely, the " License to Teach." It is obvious that, what with pupil-teachers and monitors and teachers with "License to Teach," a large amount of the teaching was at that time done by teachers of low educational attainments. About 4 per cent, of the teachers hold honour certificates — i.e., certificates awarded to holders of a university degree and to teachers who have passed an examination almost equal to a degree examination. The schools are divided into the following classes : —

In addition to his fixed salary, the teacher is paid as " results " an amount not exceeding one-half of his fixed salary, the exact amount being determined by the percentage gained at the annual examination for " results." For example, if one of the largest of Class I. schools obtains a " result " of 100 per cent, the headmaster's salary for the year following the examination is £432, and every assistant's salary is increased in the same way by half of his fixed salary. Fortunately for education in Victoria, the " result system " is about to be swept away. The Victorian Education Department has no secondary schools; but it allows its teachers to teach out of school hours certain secondary subjects, for which they charge from 3d. to Is. per week. The fee goes to the teacher of the subject. One of the most striking features in the educational machinery of Victoria is the large number of private schools and colleges. The latest year for which I have exact information is 1898, when they numbered 938, and had a gross enrolment of 51,419 pupils, of whom 39,679 were under thirteen years of age. The gross enrolment of the State schools for the same year was 238,357; hence nearly one-fifth of the children of the State were at that time attending private schools, which numbered nearly half as many as the State schools. It would therefore appear that private enterprise has undertaken not only the secondary but also much of the primary education of the State. At the end of 1900 there were in New South Wales 2,745 schools. Of these, 2,290 were classed as public and half-time schools, 394 as provisional schools, 26 as house-to-house schools, and 31 as evening schools. These schools were taught by 5,039 teachers of all classes. Deducting from this number the number of work-mistresses and students in training, we have left 4,904 teachers, comprising pupil-teachers, unclassified adult teachers, and classified adult teachers. The pupil-teachers numbered 1,093, and the unclassified adult teachers 694 ; hence 3,117, or 82 per cent., of the adult teachers were classified. Most of the unclassified teachers were head teachers f schools. Nearly 8 per cent, of the teachers are placed in Class 1., which represents teachers with degrees and those of educational status almost equal to that of a degree,

Class. Avsrage Attendance. Salary. I. II. III. 18 and over 15 to 18 12 to 15 i i ■ i £ £ 90 to 96 78 to 87 66 to 72

Class. Average Attendance. Fixed Salary. Class. Average Attendance. Fixed Salary. I. II. III. IV. Over 800 500 to 800 350 to 500 200 to 350 £ £ 239 to 288 191 to 233 157 to 185 130 to 151 V. VI. VII. VIII. 75 to 200 35 to 75 20 to 35 Under 20 96 to 124 82 to 89 75 70

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In New South Wales the number of pupil-teachers is to adult teachers as 1 to 3 ; in Victoria it is as Ito 1-4; and in New Zealand it is as Ito 275. In Otago the ratio is as Ito 5. It is obvious that the ratio in Victoria is too high for efficiency. The following table shows how the public schools of New South Wales are classed, and the salary attaching to the head-teachership of each class : —

If a female is head teacher of the 7th, Bth, 9th, or 10th class of school she receives £12 a year less than the amounts given above, and in schools ranking below the 4th class the salaries of unmarried male teachers and of married teachers not assisted by their wives are £12 per annum less than the foregoing rates. The highest salary of the teacher of a provisional school is £88 per annum. Any public school may be declared a superior public school if it is found that the attendance thereat is sufficient to enable to be formed a class of not fewer than twenty pupils who have been educated up to the standard that completes the course prescribed for the Fourth Class. In such schools, in addition to more advanced work in the ordinary subjects, the boys are taught mathematics, Latin, and science, and the girls French and sanitary science, and both sexes such other subjects as the Minister may from time to time prescribe. The course of instruction for the highest class of a superior school is that prescribed for the Fifth Class of public schools, and also such subjects as shall be prescribed annually for the Junior aud Senior Examinations of the Sydney University. The total number of such schools was, at the end of 1900, 107. In many ways they answer to our district high schools. The fee is the same as that for the ordinary public school—namely, 3d. a week per pupil. Except through the medium of bursaries and scholarships, there is no free education in New South Wales. In addition to the superior public schools, there are four State high schools, the function of which appears to be the same as that of superior public schools—namely, to prepare pupils for the examinations mentioned above. The fee for the high schools is £3 3s. per quarter. The amount of fees collected in 1900 from the schools of all classes and paid into the Treasury was £82,493 18s., which is nearly a ninth of the amount expended in education during that year. The work prescribed for the Fourth Class of New South Wales public schools is similar to that of our Standard V., with the addition of Euclid to proposition 12; and that prescribed for the Fifth Class is similar to the work of our Standard VI., with the addition of algebra to simple equations, Euclid, (Books I. and II.), elementary Latin for boys, and elementary French for girls. In Latin, French, and algebra, the work does not differ much from that of our Standard VII.; but in Euclid it is much beyond what we usually attempt outside the district high schools. On the other hand, our English goes beyond that of the New South Wales class. In New South Wales, as in New Zealand, the Education Department has to do with secondary as well as with primary education. For the teaching of secondary work in primary schools the provision made by the New Zealand Department is, I think, proportionately equal to that made by the New South Wales Department; but against the four high schools of the latter may be placed the twenty-six high schools of the former. In 1900 there were in the New South Wales high schools 127 scholarship-holders and 93 bursary-holders, while for the same year there were in the New Zealand high schools 349 scholarship-holders. To realise the significance of those figures, we must remember that the population of New South Wales is nearly twice that of New Zealand. Again, the Australian universities are, like that of New Zealand, more or less State institutions. In each of the Australian States there is but one university centre; in New Zealand there are four. The conclusion seems plain: the State educational machinery of New Zealand is, in respect to the usual branches of an English education, not inferior to that of the Australian States. For purposes of comparison, I submit the following information respecting New Zealand schools, teachers, and salaries : Number of public schools at the end of 1900 ... .. ... 1,674 Number of adult teachers ... ... ... ... ... 2,631 Number of pupil-teachers ... ... ... ... ... 955 Classified adult teachers ... ... ... ... ... 2,384 Unclassified adult teachers ... ... ... ... ... 247 Percentage of classified adult teachers ... ... ... ... 90 Percentage of classified teachers with a University degree ... ... 10 Percentage of classified teachers with certificates representing two years' 9 work at the University

Class. Average Attendance. Salary. Class. Average Attendance. Salary. I. II. III. IV. V. Over 600 400 to 500 300 to 400 200 to 300 100 to 200 £ 350 300 224 216 204 VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. 50 to 100 40 to 50 30 to 40 20 to 30 Under 20 £ 195 171 148 125 103

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Table showing the Grading of New Zealand Schools and the Salary attached to each Grade. (It will not be found difficult to transpose the grades and salaries into terms of those given for the Australian States. The capitation allowance is: For the first grade £5, for the second £2 10s., for the third £2, for the fourth £1, for the fifth and sixth £1 5s., for the seventh to the ninth 6s., for the twelfth to the nineteenth 4s., and for the rest up to the twenty-fifth 2s. After that no capitation is allowed.)

In Grades 1 and 2 males and females are paid at the same rates; in the higher grades females are paid less than males.

Staffs allotted in the Australian States and New Zealand. New South Wales.

I do not know how the allotment proceeds after this stage, but I call attention to the circumstance that in the two last groups the number of pupil-teachers exceeds that of the adult teachers. I should mention that the allotment is, in each case, not what must be, but what may be, and that the Chief Inspector, Mr. Bridges, informed me that the Department does what it can to restrict the evils of the pupil-teacher system by substituting, wherever practicable, an assistant for two pupil-teachers.

South Australia.

In schools in which the average attendance is over LOO an assistant is expected to manage an average of 70, an acting-assistant an average of 50, and a pupil-teacher an average of 30. The regulations provide for the appointment of a monitor in place of a pupil-teacher, and two pupilteachers in place of an assistant. The qualification of a monitor is possession of a fourth- or fifthclass certificate, the latter corresponding in the main to our Standard VI. certificate. The pay of a monitor is £10 a year for males and £8 for females. In my opinion the staffing of schools above 40 is inadequate.

Grade. Average Attendance. Salary. Grade. Average Attendance. Salary. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Over 8 and under 20 „ 20 „ 30 „ 30 „ 40 „ 40 „ 50 „ 50 „ 70 „ 70 „ 90 „ 90 „ 120 „ 120 „ 150 „ 150 „ 200 „ 200 „ 250 „ 250 „ 280 „ 280 „ 330 „ 330 „ 390 „ 390 „ 420 £ £ 52 to 100 100 „ 135 135 „ 155 155 „ 165 165 „ 190 190 „ 215 215 „ 224 224 „ 233 233 „ 248 248 „ 263 263 „ 272 272 „ 282 282 „ 294 294 „ 300 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Over 420 and under 480 „ 480 „ 510 „ 510 „ 570 „ 570 „ 600 „ 600 „ 660 „ 660 „ 690 „ 690 „ 750 „ 750 „ 780 „ 780 „ 840 „ 840 „ 870 „ 870 „ 930 „ 930 , 960 „ 960 „ 1,020 ,,1,020 „ 1,050 £ £ 300 to 312 312 „ 318 318 „ 330 330 „ 336 336 „ 348 348 „ 351 351 „ 357 357 „ 360 360 „ 366 366 „ 368 368 „ 374 374 374 374

Average Attendance. Staff. Under 50 ... 50 to 70 ... 70 to 80 ... 80 to 110 ... 110 to 140 ... 140 to 180 ... 180 to 220 ... 220 to 270 ... 270 to 310 ... 310 to 350 ... 350 to 400 ... 400 to 450 ... 450 to 500 ... One teacher. Teacher and a pupil-teacher. Teacher and an assistant. Teacher and 2 pupil-teachers. Teacher, assistant, and 1 pupil-teacher. Teacher, assistant, and 2 pupil-teachers. Teacher, assistant, and 3 pupil-teachers. Teacher, 2 assistants, and 2 pupil-teachers. Teacher, 2 assistants, and 3 pupil-teachers. Teacher, 2 assistants, and 4 pupil-teachers. Teacher, 3 assistants, and 4 pupil-teachers. Teacher, 3 assistants, and 5 pupil-teachers. Teacher, 3 assistants, and 6 pupil-teachers.

Average Attendance. Staff. Under 40 ... 40 to 60 ... 60 to 75 ... 75 to 100 ... 100 to 110 ... Teacher. Head teacher and a monitor. Head teacher and 2 monitors. Head teacher and an acting-assistant. Head teacher and an assistant.

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Victoria.

In all the large schools the female members of the staff greatly outnumber the male. In the school of 750 to 800, females are to males as 5 to 3, and in the school of 1,450 to 1,500 they are as 8 to 4 ; but what I particularly wish to call attention to is the high ratio of pupil-teachers and monitors to adult teachers: it is as 21 to 12 in the last-named class of school. It is impossible for a staff so constituted to do justice to the children for whom it is made responsible. Mammoth schools such as some of those I visited in Victoria and New South Wales are in themselves evils - perhaps, in huge cities and their densely peopled suburbs, unavoidable evils ; but, if they must exist, it is, I think, incumbent upon those who have the direction of education to endeavour to attenuate what is evil in them by appointing to them an ample staff of highly trained teachers. In Victoria inefficient staffing of large schools is aggravated by the system of "adjuncts"—a system that makes the headmaster of one school, often a large school, responsible for the working of a neighbouring school, also often a large one. The policy of amalgamating two large schools, the management of each of which was a sufficient tax on the capacity of a capable headmaster, has resulted in the saving of much money ; but who shall estimate at what cost to the intellectual and moral stamina of the State the saving has been effected ?

New Zealand.

This staffing is not altogether adequate, but it is obvious that it approaches nearer to adequacy than does that of any of the Australian States ; and, since Boards of Education may, and often do, substitute an assistant for two pupil-teachers, it is clear that the New Zealand Education Department takes a more enlightened view of the necessities of primary education than do the Australian Departments. By its scheme of staffing which came into operation at the beginning of this year the pupil-teachers of the colony will gradually be reduced in number to about onefifth of the adult teachers—a proportion that is considered sufficiently high to supply the wear-and-tear of the adult teaching-staff and provide for the requirements of the natural growth of population.

Average Attendance. Staff. Under 20... 20 to 35... 35 to 50... 50 to 75... 75 to 100... 100 to 125... 150 to 200... 200 to 250... 250 to 300... 300 to 350... 350 to 400 ... 400 to 450... 450 to 500... # * One teacher. Head teacher and a monitor. Head teacher and a monitor. Head teacher and 1 pupil-teacher. Head teacher, 1 assistant, and 1 monitor. Head teacher, 1 assistant, and 2 pupil-teachers. Head teacher, 2 assistants, and 2 pupil-teachers. Head teacher, 2 assistants, and 3 pupil-teachers. Head teacher, 2 assistants, 4 pupil-teachers, and 1 monitor. Head teacher, 3 assistants, 4 pupil-teachers, and 1 monitor. Head teacher, 3 assistants, 5 pupil-teachers, and 1 monitor. Head teacher, 4 assistants, 5 pupil-teachers, and 1 monitor. Head teacher, 4 assistants, 6 pupil-teachers, and 2 monitors. * * * * * 750 to 800.. Head teacher, 7 assistants, 9 pupil-teachers, and 2 monitors. 1,450 to 1,500... Head teacher, 11 assistants, 18 pupil-teachers, and 3 monitors.

Average Attendance. Staff. 40 and under 41 to 90 91 to 120 121 to 150 One teacher. Head teacher and an assistant. Head teacher, 1 assistant, and 1 pupil-teacher. Head teacher, 1 assistant, and 2 pupil-teachers, or head teacher and 2 assistants. Head teacher, 2 assistants, and 2 pupil-teachers. Head teacher, 3 assistants, and 2 pupil-teachers. Head teacher, 3 assistants, and 3 pupil-teachers. Head teacher, 4 assistants, and 3 pupil-teachers. Head teacher, 5 assistants, and 3 pupil-teachers. Head teacher, 5 assistants, and 4 pupil-teachers. Head teacher, 6 assistants, and 4 pupil-teachers. * 3j< * $ $ 151 to 200 201 to 250 251 to 280 281 to 330 331 to 390 391 to 420 421 to 480 * * 871 to 930 Head teacher, 11 assistants, and 9 pupil-teachers. * •$ * * * # * 1,021 to 1,050 Head teacher, 12 assistants, and 11 pupil-teachers.

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Training. In New South Wales there are two training colleges, one for males and one for females. The latter is residential, is beautifully placed in one of the suburbs of Sydney, has a well-appointed practising school on its own grounds, and is under the direction of a lady superintendent. The college for males is a department of the Fort Street Model School, the head teacher of which is also principal of the Training College, which is not residential, the students attending it for instruction in literary and professional work, and residing, some here, some there, in the city and suburbs. That the authorities are alive to this serious defect in the system is shown by the following recommendation made by them to the Minister: That a residential college be established at an early date. The majority of the men and women now entering the profession enter it through the pupil-teachers' course, which is a course of four years. Those who at their final examination are successful in winning a scholarship go to one of the training colleges, where they are instructed for one or two years in the subjects they will by-and-by have to teach and in the methods and principles of education. Only a small proportion of pupil-teachers succeed in winning a scholarship; and, as few of those who fail go into training, it follows that only the cleverer of the pupil-teachers get any training beyond what is implied in the pupil-teachers' course. In other words, those who need further training most of all do not get it. I found the same defect in Victoria. The following modification of the training system is now proposed:— 1. That every successful applicant pupil-teacher be required to undergo a preliminary training in the district model school or other specially selected school; that the period of training be for not less than six months ; that during its continuance the head teacher of such school shall instruct the pupil-teacher in the subjects in which he will subsequently have to be examined, and at the same time instruct him in the art and practice of teaching ; and that in the case of pupil-teachers who have to live away from home a bursary of about £30 per annum be allowed. 2. That the course of four years' training of pupil-teachers be reduced to three years. 3. That students in the Training College shall consist of three classes :— (a.) Pupil-teachers who have completed their three years' course and passed their final examination; (b.) Untrained teachers in charge of schools who can pass the final examination for pupil-teachers; (c.) Persons outside the Service who can pass the same examination and are willing to pay the cost of their training. 4. That (a) and (b) students be divided into three grades : — (1.) Those who get not less than 70 per cent, at the final examination for pupil-teachers; (2.) Those who get not less than 60 per cent, and under 70 per cent. ; (3.) Those who get not less than 50 per cent, and under 60 per cent. And that the following allowances be granted : £75 per annum to the first grade, £60 per annum to the second grade, and £36 per annum to the third grade. 5. That there be established " within the University " a residential Training College for both sexes. 6. That students who fail to pass the first-year course in arts be required to attend a second year in the afternoon at the Training College for instruction in elocution, in psychology in the schoolroom, and in hand-and-eye training. 7. That students who at the end of the first year of training succeed in passing the firstyear course in arts and gaining a 2A certificate for practical skill in teaching be permitted to attend the Sydney University for the second-year course in arts, and te required to attend the Training College in the afternoon for instruction in elocution, psychology in the schoolroom, and for lessons in hand-and-eye training. 8. That students w T ho pass the second-year course in arts and gain honours be awarded a third year's course at the University. The three things I wish to direct attention to in these proposals are, — 1. That the pupil-teachers who pass their final examination are all to be eligible for admission to the Training College. 2. That the Training College is to be residential. 3. That all trainees are to get more or less of university education. In Victoria the teacher usually begins his teaching-life as a pupil-teacher ; and, unless he is endowed with good natural ability and favoured by circumstance, he passes straight from his pupilteachership to the position of assistant or head teacher. The Education Department has provided a well-appointed residential Training College for the exceptionally gifted, but not for him, not for those who most need further literary and professional training, but for the gifted few who need it least. Out of, say, 300 pupil-teachers Iwho pass their final examination every year it selects by competitive examination the fifty best in point of literary and professional attainments, and allows the rest to drift into the profession without any further special training. The system is neither better nor worse than the system that has until recently prevailed in the other Australian States and still prevails in New South Wales. And, indeed, we of New Zealand are in little better case. It is true that in Otago and Canterbury nearly all pupil-teachers get one year's special training in the Training College; but in most other parts of the colony they are passing into the profession without any training beyond what they receive as pupil-teachers. That there has been any training college at all in New Zealand for some years is due to the enlightened and spirited policy of two Education Boards, the North Canterbury Board and the Otago Board.

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The Victorian authorities are about to make radical changes in their system of training. They propose to establish a Junior Training College, to which entrance is to be gained by a system of scholarships. For these, boys and girls who wish to become teachers will have to compete, and the successful competitors will be given a two years' course in a well-equipped college or high school. At the end of this course they will be appointed as junior assistants at a suitable salary and for a period of two years ; and while thus employed they will have to undergo no examination, except in the methods and principles of teaching, in which they will be instructed by the teachers of the schools in which they are employed. At the end of this stage of their training they will enter the University Training College, where they will be taught by University professors the subjects of the Arts and Science Course. It is intended that the principal of the Training College shall be lecturer on education at the University. Teachers so trained will, it is considered, carry with them to the remotest parts of the State the ennobling influence of university life and ideals. As will be seen, the system is much like the one lam about to describe. Until recently the pupil-teacher system of South Australia was similar to our own, an apprenticeship of four years, which was followed by a year's training in the Training College. Thus the entire course of training extended to five years, as with us. Under the present regulations the complete course of training occupies six years, the first two of which are spent in the Pupil-teachers' School, the next two in actual teaching in the schools from which they were drawn, and the next two in the University Training College. The course of study in the Pupil-teachers' School is intended to prepare the students for the Junior and Senior Examinations of the University of Adelaide, and to give instruction in such other branches of knowledge as are taught in the schools of the State. The candidates are in the first instance selected by the head teacher of the school in which a vacancy is to occur at the end of the year; but before appointment as pupil-teachers they must satisfy the District Inspector as to their power to control and their aptitude for teaching, must pass the examination for entrance to the Pupil-teachers' School, must have reached the full age of fourteen years before the Ist day of January of the year in which they enter that school, and must produce a medical certificate of good health and physical fitness for the work of teaching. When they have satisfied these conditions, instead of teaching in their own schools during the day and studying for the annual examination at night, they are sent to be taught for two years at the Pupil-teachers' School. During the first year there males are paid £15 and females £12, and during the second year males £20 and females £16, books and materials being provided free of cost. At the end of each year they are examined by the University, which charges them no fee. The increase in salary does not depend upon passing the examination, but upon satisfactory industry and conduct at the school. Every pupil-teacher appointed to a country school and having to reside away from home to attend the Pupil-teachers' School is, in addition to his salary, allowed £20 a year as maintenance, and is granted two return fares home each year. During the third and fourth years of their course they teach in their own schools, the males receiving £30 for the third year and £40 for the fourth, and the females £24 for the third year and £30 for the fourth. During these two years they may be required to attend at the University of Adelaide and at other centres for the purpose of receiving collective instruction, and may further be required to continue their studies by correspondence with the University Training College and the Pupil-teachers' School. They are to receive from the head teachers of the schools in which they are employed adequate instruction in the most approved methods of teaching, and one hour's instruction daily in the morning, or at some time approved by the Board of Inspectors, to prepare them for entrance into the University Training College. Upon the satisfactory completion of their four years as pupil-teachers, such of the students as wish to may proceed to the University Training College on condition that they bind themselves to serve the Department for four years. If they comply with this condition, they receive a maintenance allowance of £30 per annum, which may be increased if it is shown to the Minister that the cost of travelling or family circumstances justify an increase in the allowance. Students not residing with their parents are required to reside in approved lodgings and to conform to such rules for their conduct as may from time to time be prescribed. They are under the direction of the Superintendent, who exercises a general supervision over them, and is responsible to the Board of Inspectors for their diligence, the direction of their studies, and for their training in practical work. He also directs the studies of the third- and fourth-year students. During their attendance at the college, students are to be carefully instructed in the best methods of teaching such subjects as are comprised in the course of instruction for pupils, to receive lectures in organization and methods from the head teachers of the practising-schools specially associated with the University Training College, and to spend at least one hour a week in practical work in one of these schools. It is considered by the authorities that students who have done well in the Pupil-teachers' School, kept up their studies during the two years of teaching, and been industrious at the University, should, at the end of their two years there, leave it with the degree of B.A. and a diploma in teaching. This is probably a too sanguine view. The scheme outlined above has but recently come into operation. In its main features it seems a good one; but the realisation of its promise will depend very largely upon the superintendents of the Pupil-teachers' School and University Training College and the head teachers of the practisingschools. The long monitorial course that precedes appointment to pupil-teacherships is, I think, a very objectionable feature of it. In 1900] there were twice as many monitors as pupil-teachers. Buildings and Teaching. I visited the Victorian schools after an absence of nearly a quarter of a century ; it was natural therefore that I should expect to see great improvement in buildings, in equipment, and in methods. I was disappointed; for I found that what these were twenty-five years ago they are in great

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measure now. There are the same ill-lighted rooms, the same ill-designed and comfortless seats and desks, the same absence of class-rooms for infant departments, the same sacrifice of utility and internal neatness to exterior architectural effect, the same distractions from the teaching of three or four classes in one long room, the same insanitary method of disposing the hats and cloaks along the back wall of the schoolroom, the same narrow dismal lobbies, the same unkempt schoolgrounds, and a more inadequate staffing, pupil-teachers and monitors greatly exceeding in number the adult members of the staff in every large school I visited. The first condition of success is an adequate staff of well-educated and well-trained teachers, and the next is well-designed and well-equipped schoolrooms ; and, in my opinion, these conditions are not satisfied in Victoria, for the rooms and their equipment are for the most part precisely what they ought not to be, and far too much of the teaching falls upon imperfectly educated youth. The blame for the first defect lies with those who designed the buildings and their equipment, and the blame for the second with those whose business it was to provide money for the payment of competent teachers. The money put into the buildings and furniture ought to have made them what they ought to be; but the amount spent in the payment of teachers and Inspectors has for many years been and still is greatly below what is necessary to produce a high level of intellectual work in the schools. In the educational as in the commercial world, if you want a good thing you must pay for it; and inferiority in education is infinitely more harmful to a nation than is inferiority in articles of commerce. We cannot educate without competent educators, and it is idle to pretend that monitors and pupil-teachers are competent educators. In my opinion, the Victorian Department employs nearly twice as many of these teachers as it should do. Its practice is the abuse, not the use, of the pupil-teacher system, and this opinion is shared by its expert officers. Parliament, not they, is responsible for the defect I am pointing out, and to Parliament Victorians should look for means to supply the remedy. Having condemned the Department's abuse of a system that has its uses, I hasten to add that in the majority of schools in which I observed their work the pupil-teachers controlled their classes well, and showed good training in the mechanical methods induced by the " result system " so long in vogue in Victoria—a system that has done great harm to real education in the State, and that has again and again been condemned by the the Department as well as by the educated laity of the community. That it should have survived so long the strenuous intelligent criticism that has been levelled against it is proof of the difficulty of moving a great Department and of the unwisdom of centralising in one city the entire management of a nation's education. And mere inertia is not the only evil of centralisation; another is its blighting influence on local interest. In New Zealand everybody is interested in education, because everybody shares in its management. Every school has its Committee elected by the householders of the district; every member of a Committee has a vote for the members of the Education Board of the Education District; and, subject to the general regulations of the Department of Education, the Education Board controls the educational affairs of the district. The cycle is thus complete, and local interest is a living part of the system. There is nothing like it in Australia. In Victoria and the other Australian States there are no School Committees and no Education Boards, for the Boards of Advice answer to neither, and, so far as I could gather, have not a whit of influence, whether for good or for evil. The Department is everything and its influence everywhere, and every school is regarded not as a local institution in which every resident has a living interest, but as part and parcel of a huge machine controlled from the capital city. For more than a quarter of a century the people have had little or no part in the government of their schools, and naturally they have in great measure ceased to take an active interest in either their intellectual or their material welfare. That, at any rate, is how it struck me, and I do not hesitate to say that, in my judgment, the Australian Departments of Education are pursuing a policy that is highly detrimental to the intellectual life of the States. A policy that strangles local interest, whether in educational or other affairs, is doomed to failure. To this the Victorian authorities are now, lam glad to say, fully alive; and Mr. Tate, the recently appointed Director of Education, who is brimful of ideas and enthusiasm, and a man of great ability and personal magnetism, has already set about rousing the people from the indifference into which they have drifted in educational affairs, and in this he is ably assisted by a staff of capable Inspectors, a staff, however, altogether too small for the efficient performance of the work they have for many years been called upon to do. Much of what I have said about the buildings of Victoria applies to those of South Australia and New South Wales: many of them are too long and badly lighted, the light being insufficient in quantity, admitted from wrong directions, and not properly diffused. Some of the Sydney schools are, from the point of view of lighting, among the worst I saw. In answer to this it may be urged that, in determining the area of glass-surface necessary for the illumination of the schoolrooms, the authorities were guided by the circumstance that during a large part of the year the Australian light is very strong, and that in view of this fact they limited the illuminating-surface to a small area. To this I reply that the area of clear-glass surface necessary for the adequate illumination of a room is properly determined not by the area required on bright sunny days, but by that required on overcast and rainy days. If during such days the light admitted to any part of a room is less than fifty candle metres (the light afforded by fifty standard candles placed at the distance of one metre from the child) the light is, according to the authorities, insufficient, and the pupil's eyes are subject to undue strain. Good eyesight is a most precious thing, and provision for its preservation should be the first consideration with those whose duty it is to design the rooms in which we compel the children to work. Is a State justified in compelling children to attend schools the hygienic conditions of which are detrimental to their health ? A schoolroom that does not satisfy the following conditions is more or less faultily constructed: — 1. It must admit abundance of light from the left or back and left. 2. The light from the back must not overpower that from the side.

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3. The windows must be carried up as near as possible to the ceiling, must not be arched at the top, and must not be " frosted." 4. The windows admitting light from the left must begin as near as possible to the back corner of the room. 5. The walls and ceiling must be so stained as to diffuse the light. 6. Special provision must be made for the illumination of class-rooms from the windows of which the sky is cut off by neighbouring buildings or other objects. 7. Every window must be provided with apparatus whereby the amount of light admitted may be regulated. 8. The room must provide about 15 square feet of floor-space for each child in attendance. Twelve square feet should be the minimum. These conditions are not satisfied by our own schools, and much less are they satisfied by the schools I visited in Australia. In South Australia and Victoria, to the discomfort of bad light is added the discomfort of seats so constructed as to afford no rest for the backs of the children, who sit all day and every day on the same narrow seats, in the same bent attitudes, and with eyes strained to the utmost to see their own work and that of their teacher. Many of our own schools have serious faults of lighting; but they all provide back-rest for the children during all lessons that do not involve writing. Like the Australians, we have our long rooms, but none so long as theirs. lam entirely opposed to long class-rooms in which the pupils sit facing the long side; for in the first place it is almost impossible to light them properly, and in the next the pupils sitting on the extreme left or right have a difficulty in hearing the teacher and in seeing, without undue foreshortening, what he writes or draws on the blackboard, For lighting, seeing, and hearing, the best form is the oblong, with aisles running the long way of the room. A room 30 ft. by 25 ft. is now considered the best type of room for teaching purposes. Such a room, if well ventilated, would provide accommodation for an average of about sixty-five pupils, the maximum number a teacher should be asked to teach. A feature that strikes a visitor to the South Australian schools is the decoration of the walls with good well-framed pictures, all bought with money raised locally, and generally by school concerts, for which preparation was made out of school hours. In Victoria, decoration of the brick schools is out of the question, for the walls, being unplastered, are not unlike those of a barn. In Australia the head teacher is not, as with us, provided with a residence or a rent allowance ; but, where there is a residence, he is charged rent whether he occupies it or not. The residences I saw are greatly inferior to those of Otago. In Adelaide, for example, I visited a school of 800 pupils, the head teacher of which is provided with a house of five rooms, for which he has to pay a rent of £30 a year. Some of the country residences I saw are unworthy of the name " residence " ; they are properly denoted by the term by which they are sometimes officially known, " quarters," and they possess all the qualities connoted by that ugly term. One would think that the Education Departments had gone out of their way to belittle their teachers in the eyes of those among whom they send them to live. Great State Departments seem to have in them very little of the spirit of humanity. In Victoria the syllabus of instruction is very much like our own ; and, except in English and, perhaps, in arithmetic, in which the work is more mechanical than with us, the quality of the teaching compares favourably with ours. Our English is not good ; but it is, I think, much better than that of the Australian States 1 visited. In our junior classes we read much more and thus lay a wider foundation for the senior classes to build upon, and in none of the classes do we adopt the simultaneous method of the Victorian schools. There, in all the schools in which I saw read-ing-lessons given, the teacher reads a paragraph, then the class read it in concert, then individual pupils were called upon to read it—a method designed, one would think, not to stimulate mental activity, but to produce mental stagnation ; for it imposes upon the children only an effort of imitation —the reproduction of the teacher's pronunciation of the words and his interpretation of the thought of what is read : the children are parrots and nothing more. The method is bad because it does not put the pupils on their mettle, does not afford them the opportunity of grappling with and overcoming the difficulties of pronunciation and interpretation, does not develop power, or only the power of imitation. The " result system " has no doubt tended to make teachers follow the lines of least resistance, and this may account for the adoption of the method I am condemning. In the other States more of the work was thrown upon the pupils; but help was too readily given incases of difficulty, and hardly anything was done to make the children realise the thought before attempting to read the writer's expression of it. In some of the Victorian infant-rooms I saw good work done by the " Quincy method," a method that might well be combined with our own phonic method. As with us, the children of the Australian States work up with great thoroughness the spelling of their reading-books, cramming into their minds the forms of the words while paying little attention to the content of them. It is the content, not the form, of a word that is of value ; and it is my opinion that the pupil should possess himself of the content before he is asked to write the form. Spelling is part of the mechanism of written speech and is, or ought to be, taught for purposes of written speech. It is obvious that we cannot use in composition words the meaning of which we do not know. There is no doubt in my own mind that in the common school we give too much time to the forms of words and too little to their meanings. We make spelling the bugbear of the child's school life. What can be more uninteresting to any one than learning forms the meanings of which he does not know? Composition is a department of English in which the Otago schools are, I think, greatly in advance of the Australian schools, where, if I may judge from what I saw, this subject is treated in a very perfunctory manner. I examined many exercises and tested several classes, but could 2—E. lc.

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find little evidence of sound teaching. Technical grammar receives a good deal of attention ; but it is not made to bear on the child's spoken and written speech. It is treated rather as a thing apart from the child's life, as a thing that is concerned with the printed words of a book and not with the spoken and written words of the child. Of parsing and analysis there is, as with us, more than enough ; but of the power of a word in the right place there is nothing. In this department of grammar there is no examination, and therefore no teaching. One of the best teachers of technical grammar I met in Australia told me that he was careful to present to his pupils nothing but the best sentence-forms he could lay hands on. I agreed with him as to the selection of good models, and asked him to show me a sample of his work. From a well-filled pocket-book he chose the following:— His restless, capacious, and inventive mind had formed this scheme at a time when the ablest servants of the company were busied only about invoices and bills of lading. It would, however, be unjust to criticize with severity a book which, if the author had lived to complete and revise it, would probably have been improved by condensation. These sentences were analysed and certain of their words parsed in the orthodox way; and, from the point of view that parsing and analysis are the all-in-all of grammar, the work was excellent. Much was said about the difficulty of recognising the adjective clause beginning with "when," of parsing the word "only," and of analysing a sentence containing two conjunctive words in juxtaposition (" which " and " if " in the second sentence) ; but nothing about the position of the adverb " only," here properly placed before the phrase it qualifies ; nothing about the function and place of "however"; nothing about the placement of the phrase " with severity " and the clause " if the author had lived to complete and revise it " ; nothing about the punctuation ; in other words, nothing about the very features that make the sentences good in form. The children got out of the exercise nothing that could be of use to them in their own constructive work nothing that could help them to a judgment of what is good in literary form. Every year I see in many of our own schools the same treatment of good sentence-forms, the same absence of attention to the points that make the forms good. I am unwilling to believe that these points are unknown to the teachers. It is my experience that the average teacher teaches to the best of his ability what is prescribed for him to teach. The kind of work the absence of which lam pointing out is not prescribed, and is therefore not taught, or taught only in a perfunctory way. Parsing and analysis ought to be held to include thought and form. However much the Philistines may decry it, there is no more productive mental discipline than the study of grammar; but it must be study of the right kind, and the study that limits itself to parsing and analysis is not of the right kind. It is, indeed, precisely of the kind that evokes and goes far to justify the condemnation of the critics. Poetry is another department of English in which the larger schools of Otago are in advance of similar schools seen by me in Australia. I do not say that our treatment of this class of literature is adequate; it is often very inadequate ; but in our large schools it is, I think, better treated than in the large schools I visited in Australia. What is the teacher's work in the teaching of poetry ? It is to make the reading and recitation of it a genuine enjoyment to his pupils, not to turn the the poet's garden into a valley of dry bones. He has to construct for his pupils a suitable background for the poem, to put them at the point of view of the poet, to make them realise the poet's pictures and feel his emotion and the rhythm and music of his verse ; in brief, to aim at making the poem live in their imagination as it lived in the imagination of the poet. This is his work, and it is precisely the work of which I found little evidence in the classes I tested and saw tested in Australia. Poetry is the culture subject of primary schools, and the pity is that it should be treated so inadequately. We talk (foolishly, as I think) of our primary education being too literary. The truth is it is altogether too unliterary. Arithmetic is well taught in South Australia, the authorities having made a specialty of the subject, greatly, as I think, to the detriment of English. Indeed, this opinion is shared by some of themselves. In the senior classes of New South Wales and Victoria I saw some very good work in this subject ; but the teaching of the junior and middle classes of the former State seemed to me inferior to that of the corresponding classes of the latter. It would be difficult to better the numberteaching done in some of the infant departments of Victoria and South Australia. I was frequently struck with the unsoundness of the reasons assigned for the steps of reduction sums. It is my judgment that the best schools of Otago are in this subject level with the best schools seen by me in Australia. In the South Australian and Victorian schools I saw some very good writing and drawing, and heard some excellent singing—singing that was sweeter and more expressive than ours. I find I have no note of what is done in these departments of work in New South Wales. Victoria is, I think, greatly in advance of South Australia and New Zealand in the provision she has made for the teaching of drawing, which she has placed under the direction of a very capable Art Inspector, part of whose duty it is to visit the schools of the State and advise the teachers and Inspectors as to right aims and methods. He insists that, in addition to being a training for hand, arm, and eye, drawing is a mode of expression, and that it must before all else express intelligent conception of the thing drawn. Pie allows no aids even in the junior classes, and kindergarten squares are to him an abomination. In history we are, I think, easily first; but in geography I give the first place to South Australia, where the child begins with his own experiences, and is trained to interpret the unseen in terms of the seen. Nothing could be more dreary and uninspiring than most of the " lessons" I saw in Victoria and New South Wales; they were almost wholly divorced from the life of the children. I am of those who think highly of geography as a culture subject, but who condemn as worthless much of the work that has so long masqueraded under the name. It is not geography at all; it is mere paper study of names, and often not good at that; and the teaching is what it is partly because the work prescribed is badly drawn, but more largely because we do not generally realise how great

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is the demand made by geography on the scientific attainments and general culture of the teacher. Geography is a composite science, the competent treatment of which involves, in addition to a sound knowledge of its constituent sciences, a knowledge of history and sociology, and nothing short of a working-knowledge of them all is an adequate equipment for the teacher, who, to make it an instrument of culture, must be able to read and train his pupils to read the book of Nature that lies open before him and them—to read it not as a record of facts unrelated to one another, to them, and to the rest of the world, but as a record revealing to the seeing eye the marvellous history and relation of the things that lie within and beyond its ken, The beauty in which all things live and move, and tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything. In the Australian States, as in New Zealand, the bulk of the schools are rural schools ; and there, as here, very little has been done to equip teachers for the teaching of sfubjects that have special bearing on rural life. But, though we are in line with the Australians in respect to absence of training in " nature study," we are greatly in advance of them in respect to what is actually done in this class of work in our rural schools, in all of which we have for years insisted upon the teaching of the elements of agricultural knowledge. In Australia this department of work is, I was informed, almost entirely neglected. We are about to reorganize our training system, and I trust that our authorities will not forget the needs of rural schools. In one South Australian school (Rose Park) I saw some good chip carving, and in two others (Richmond and Plympton) some excellent gardening. One hour a week is given to gardening, and during the last two years sufficient flowers and vegetables were grown to enable the teachers to buy all the implements used in the work and, in addition, decorations for the school-walls and apparatus for school-work. Among the things purchased with the proceeds of the sales are a sewing-machine and a lathe. The Inspectors informed me that similar work is done in several other schools, but that in the majority nothing of the kind is attempted. In one school I saw clay modelling, which, however, was inferior to the plasticine modelling I have seen in one of our own schools. I was much pleased with the sloyd and cookery classes of the Victorian schools. In these subjects Victoria is in advance of the other Australian States and of New Zealand. When the Victorian Department resolved to introduce manual instruction into its schools it brought from England and elsewhere teachers specially trained in the work to be introduced, and imposed upon them the training of a body of teachers whose duty it should be to teach the manual exercises in suitable centres in the cities and larger towns. The number of teachers receiving instruction in manual work is constantly increasing, and the aim of the Department is to qualify a sufficent number to make practicable the competent teaching of hand-work in every school of the State. In the centres now established each teacher of sloyd teaches 200 boys a week—that is, a draft of twenty every morning and every afternoon. Every exercise of the pupils is the concrete realisation of a sketch or a scale drawing. The work is optional to the boys, and no fee is charged. The whole of the manual work for boys is under the direction and supervision of the Manual Instruction Inspector. With us manual instruction is a new subject, and therefore I am unable to compare ours with that of Victoria ; but I may say that, in my opinion, our kindergarten work, is equal to any I saw in Australia. For the discipline of the Australian schools I have nothing but praise; but I was especially pleased with the smart orderly assembling and dismissal of two of the Adelaide schools, each numbering over a thousand pupils. I may briefly describe the method of assembling, using the present tense: — The children are all playing in the ground. The teacher blows his whistle, and they at once stand at attention and facing in one direction on the spot where they are playing. At a signal from the teacher the drum-and-fife band plays a march, and the children march quickly and silently to their class places and take up their alignment. The teacher again blows his whistle, and the band stops playing. The teacher gives the order, Right (or Left) turn, and a signal to the band to begin playing. The children at once begin marching to the music of the band, keeping perfect time and perfect dressing in ground, lobby, and staircase. There is no thumping with the feet, no talking, no disorder of any kind. The standard of attainment necessary for exemption from further attendance at school is higher in New Zealand than in the Australian States, and in South Australia than in the other States, where a child may claim exemption if he has passed in the reading, spelling, writing, and arithmetic of Class IV. in Victoria, and of Class HI. in New South Wales, classes the work of which corresponds in the main with that of our Standard IV. In New Zealand the " standard of exemption " is Standard V., and to get his exemption certificate a child must pass the Inspector's examination in reading, spelling, writing, composition, and arithmetic, and must satisfy the Inspector that he has received regular and suitable instruction in drawing, grammar, history, elementary science, and recitation. Technical Schools. Apart from the technical work of the universities and university colleges, Victoria and New South Wales are far in advance of South Australia and New Zealand in the provision they have made for trade and technical instruction. Of the technical schools I visited, the Sydney Technical College struck me as being the best. It is under the direct control of the Education Department, is splendidly equipped, and has a staff of 124 teachers, comprising 12 lecturers in charge of departments, 7 resident masters in charge of schools in the country, 56 teachers, 20 salaried assistant teachers, and 29 class-teachers remunerated by class fees alone. The number of individuals attend-

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ing the classes in 1900 was 7,647, the number of classes 264, and the amount of fees paid £7,333. The buildings are of great size ; nevertheless they are inadequate for the numbers seeking admission. The students now waiting their turn are said to be numbered by thousands. A large proportion of the students are engaged in the trades of the city, and attend the classes of the college to learn such branches of their trades as in these days of specialisation they cannot learn, or learn only very imperfectly, in the workshops in which they are employed ; but a considerable proportion of them have received a secondary education, and are doing at the college work of university rank. Connected with the college is a fine Technological Museum, which is a bureau of information respecting the raw and manufactured products of New South Wales. It contains over a hundred thousand specimens'of plants, minerals, casts, &c, which are used for the furtherance of technical education in the College, and constitute a fine body of reference types for workers in natural science and technology in every part of the State. The College and the Museum are institutions of which the people of New South Wales may well be proud. Victoria has eighteen technical schools, ten being schools of mines, five schools of art, and three colleges. Of the schools of mines only four can, it is said, be properly called schools of mines ; they are correctly described as State technical schools. Of the schools of mines I visited only one, that at Ballarat, an institution in every way worthy of the beautiful city in which it is placed. Like all such schools in Victoria, it is governed by a council, and supported partly by fees and partly by private subscriptions and Government grants. In its higher classes its teaching is based on secondary education, and is of university rank. Its chief function is to prepare young men for the " associateship," the course for which is a three years' course, and embraces the following subjects : Mining engineering, metallurgy, and geology. In addition to its fine museum of geological specimens, physical, chemical, and electrical laboratories, and balance-rooms, it has a splendid mining plant, consisting of batteries, sampler, Halley's percussion-tables, Wilfley concentrator, Linkenbach table, Chilian mill, Berdan pans, furnace for the roasting of pyrites, and other apparatus necessary for the treatment of refractory ores. I visited two other technical schools during my stay in Victoria—the Gordon College in Geelong, and the Working-men's College in Melbourne. The former does work similar to that done in our own technical school, but its classes are smaller. In the character and range of its work the latter is, I think, not unworthy to rank with the Sydney Technical College; but its buildings, though erected and equipped at a cost of nearly £60,000, are for the most part ill designed for purposes of technical instruction. In 1900 the number of individual students was 3,500, and the amount of fees £5,396. The attendance is now, I was informed, about 5,000, a number for which the buildings do not provide adequate accommodation. Since 1879 Victoria has spent over £300,000 on her technical schools. This amount does not include revenue raised locally through fees and subscriptions. I cannot close this report without expressing my thanks to the Education Department of New South Wales for furnishing me with all the documents I needed for my inquiries, and for permitting me to inspect its schools ; to the Education Departments of Victoria and South Australia for similar favours, and for giving me, in addition, the assistance of an Inspector in all my visits to their schools; and to the Premiers of Victoria and South Australia, the Hon. Mr. Peacock and the Hon. Mr. Jenkins, for the generous provision they made to enable me to achieve the purpose of my visit. To Mr. Tate, the Director of Education in Victoria, I am specially indebted for much valuable help in the work I had undertaken. I have, &c, P. Goyen, The Secretary of the Otago Education Board. Chief Inspector. Approximate Cost of Paper. —Preparation, nil; printing (1,875 copies), £7 48. 6d.

By Authority: John Mackay, Oovernment Printer. Wellington. —1902. Price 6d.]