34

E.—lb

Only a trifling advantage has been taken in the district of the recent change in the general regulations by which children may be presented for examination in a standard already passed, on the conditions that (a) they shall be placed in the lower class not less than three months before the date of examination, and (b) they shall not be reckoned as passing again in the same standard. Only twenty-eight children have been so presented. In these cases I have not insisted on the former of the two conditions mentioned, on the ground that the date of publication of the altered regulation scarcely allowed sufficient time. The children were in general brought down from the higher classes immediately before examination, and their names are included in my returns on the rolls of those classes. All children so examined have been treated in my separate reports as failures for the higher standard, and this practice supplies the main reason why teachers have not sought to avail themselves to a greater extent of the discretionary po%ver vested in them by the regulation in question. It may be sufficient in future to count the proportion so presented in estimating the total percentage of promotions in the school. Standabds.—lt is usual to institute a comparison with the results obtained in the several standards during the previous year. I cannot regard the conclusions to be derived from such a comparison as of any great value, for a bad year in any standard or throughout a school naturally implies favourable conditions for next year's examination. Standard I. and the infant division are very fairly taught in our larger schools where the staff allows the employment of a teacher, more or less skilled, for the junior classes, and regular systems of instruction are pursued; but I have had frequently to direct attention to defects, in the case of smaller schools, when the teacher has either been overburdened with the number of classes or has not been fully alive to the necessity of making the best possible provision for future success. In Standard 11. the geography was the most frequent cause of failure, being often under-estimated; and the history of Standard 111. was the despair of most of the teachers. The results in Standard IV. bear out to some extent the com-monly-accepted view that the step from Standard 111. is rather great for a large proportion of pupils ; but, in comparing this standard with Standards V. and VI., full weight must be given to the fact that it is represented in all the schools, with the exception of the Timaru (Side) School, in which the Second Standard is made the highest class, and the results in consequence test the skill of even our most experienced teachers. The good work shown in many instances in the highest standards, when the school has been in the hands of a highly competent teacher, proves that the course of instruction is calculated not only to develop mechanical accuracy, but to cultivate to a high degree the intelligence of the children. Subjects.—ln dealing with the subjects of instruction, I must point out that, my visits to the schools being mainly for the purpose of examination, my knowledge is for the most part confined to results, and scarcely extends to the methods by which those results are produced. Reading.—With reading is very properly associated a knowledge of the meanings of the words or expressions employed. I regret to say that I have rarely been able to obtain satisfactory answers when the pupils were required to explain a few striking words or expressions in the reading lesson. Exact definition is certainly a thing of great difficulty, and it would be unreasonable to expect perfect accuracy, yet I am under the impression that much more might be done by our teachers in the direction indicated. I am far from recommending that the exercise should consist of learning by rote the meanings of a few selected words given at the top of each reading lesson —the meanings must be taught in connection with the text. lam afraid the whole subject does not receive from many of our teachers the attention which its importance merits. There are, however, some of our schools, especially the larger ones, in which the reading is of very high quality. The books in use are well adapted to the purposes for which they are required ; but I have here to repeat a warning, constantly given during my visits, that in the lowest standards and among the infants the children, in the course of the year's work, become too familiar with the wording, and consequently repeat the sentences by rote. I regard this as a bad fault, a partial remedy for which may be found in the use of two sets of reading books. I wish also to impress upon our teachers that I cannot consider reading of a high quality unless it be natural; word-grouping should receive more attention in the lower classes, and the high-toned monotonous repetition of separate words entirely disappear. Spelling.—ln examining this subject I have rarely gone beyond the words in the readinglessons, my reason being that, as from the point of view of a primary school spelling is mainly arbitrary, it would not be fair to test knowledge by giving words with which the children had not had some opportunity of becoming familiar in the teacher's presence. In the earlier stages, however, teachers must not by any means confine themselves to the same limits ; but must seek for as many illustrations as possible of a particular mode of representing a given sound. Our less experienced teachers should also bear in mind that spelling is taught through the eye, and that methods of testing knowledge convenient for the examiner may be quite unsuited to the teacher's functions. The results in spelling have too often disappointed me, even where there was abundant evidence of earnest and efficient work in other subjects and the teacher could not but be regarded as well skilled in the practice of his profession. Wbiting.—Writing on the whole is very fairly taught. In some cases it is taught exclusively from the black-board, but in general Philip's or Vere Foster's copy-books are in use, and sometimes Darnell's. In using copy-books satisfactory results are produced in any style, if sufficient supervision be exercised, but with those issued by Mr. Vere Foster the want of attention seems to produce the worst results, the writing degenerating into an irregular scribble. In the Second Standard teachers following the order of Philip's exercises frequently disregard the intention of the Syllabus of Instruction, and beginning with " text hand," present that alone at examination or in company with a little " half text." In a very few cases I find the opposite fault, which I consider a more serious one, the children being allowed to proceed to small hand in the lower standards before they have learnt to form the letters properly. A teacher with such a tendency should bear in mind the advice of Locke that he should have the characters a "pretty deal bigger" than the pupil should ordinarily write, " for every one comes by degrees to write a less hand than he at first was taught, but never a bigger."