19

E.—lb.

and prepared even in a subject like drawing manifests in the work the qualities of neatness, patience, order, and industry. Such moral qualities only appear where moral influences are in operation, and where, therefore, honest work is done. For my part I am satisfied that a much higher moral tone exists in our schools to-day than at any former time within my experience, and that the same influence is operating for good in the homes of many where the higher influences of religion have not yet reached. The work of training, it is true, is slow, but Though the mills of God grind slowly Yet they grind exceeding small. Non-compulsory Woek very Good. — Last year I made reference to the good work being done in the schools in those cases where teachers had freedom in the choice of subjects for instruction. This freedom is enjoyed in what are known as " class" and "additional" subjects, and no part of the standard school course continues to give me more satisfaction. In the " class subjects," which include elementary science, object lessons, geography (Standards 11.-IV.), and English history (Standards 111.-VI.), I find that nine schools gained 70 per cent.'or more of the maximum marks, twelve others gained between 60 and 70 per cent., and ten others between 50 and 60 per cent. —that is, thirty-one out of forty-six schools gained more than half marks. In the " additional subjects" much of the work is of a kind that is always attractive to teachers and children, and, as the marks appended will show, some of the schools have reached a high standard of excellence in them. Elementary Science. —That much good is being done by instruction in elementary science in our schools the following quotations from an ex-schoolboy's letter to myself will plainly show. I might say that the school where the lad was taught uses " Paul Bert's Year Book of Scientific Knowledge," a book which I should like to see oftener used in the schools. Writing to me in November last, acknowledging the receipt of some magnets I had sent him, the lad says, " It may be interesting to you to know about the electrical machines I have and the experiments I perform with them I am not describing these things because I am proud of what I can do, for I am willing to tell those desirous of learning all I know about these things I made an electrical bell and battery I made a microphone myself, and have put up a telegraph line from our washhouse to the woolshed. The line is supported on poles, has two wires, and is about ten chains long. I put a battery of my own making on the washhouse, and also a telephone ; then Igo down to the woolshed and put on a microphone. People talking or singing about 3ft. or 4ft. away can be heard in the telephone quite distinctly." Small as this work may appear, it is a lad's work, and it is the outcome of the elementary scientific instruction authorised to be taught in the public schools. Technical Education. — Here a good example is presented showing what the scientific instruction in the schools —elementary though it be—is likely to produce if carefully fostered. But it seems to me scarcely possible for scientific teaching to be carried into the school routine much further than this. Handiwork, or the skilful employment of the hands in combination with the mind, can hardly proceed beyond the introduction of writing, drawing, and their cognates into the standard school course, because to. do so would result in carrying specialisation beyond the limits of practicability. You can specialise too much in public-school keeping, just as you can generalise too much. A public school is not the place for individual specialisation in knowledge, for the reason that the school, and not the child, constitutes the unit to be dealt with. The aim of every school should be to give that instruction and that training likely to be of use to all pupils attending the school. Hence, whilst schools should be differentiated in the matter of instruction so as to become adapted to districts, the instruction ought hot to be further specialised for the benefit of any pupil. Towns, districts, countries are examples equally of special and of relative generalisation, and good government, whether educational or other, adapts itself to each, and so develops types and characteristics such as the environment demands. To do the same thing at the same time in all places develops what is best expressed as Chinese "uniformity. All children cannot become farmers, or carpenters, or ploughmen, or mechanics, nor is it desirable that they should, so that it would be useless to specialise the work of a public school for the benefit of any trade or calling, as some persons are vainly imagining to be possible. The public schools do not require workshops to be added to them, for they are already workshops of a most severe type, but the great wants of to-day are adaptive education, better school appliances for objective and technical instruction, and betteropportunities for teachers to prepare themselves in science and art. When these are forthcoming the schools will be able to send out into the world of specialisation children with better aims and capacities than now, and with a higher ideal than the prevailing one of to-day, which is, I regret to observe, how best to utilise the schools for commercial purposes, as if all virtue, and knowledge, and goodness were measurable by the standard of gold. Pass Subjects.—Among the pass subjects which are compulsory for all standard pupils reading is generally taught with fair success. Few r localisms are met with in the schools, the misuse of the particles " a" and "the " has very nearly disappeared, the aspirate is not overlooked, and the only real and growing defect is the substitution of the sound of " en " for " ing " in words like running, talking, &c. This defect is much more common in the town than in the country schools. I am afraid that the standard system does little to foster the habit of reading among children. Home lessons also, it seems to me, are a great bar to reading, as the time which might be spent on this subject is taken up with the preparation of work "which ought, in a great measure, to be done in school. As now conducted, the reading lesson has little or no attraction for learners. The old exposition lessons have almost disappeared from the schools, and one seldom finds pupils, even in the highest standards of a good school, able to give in their own words the paraphrase or interpretation of an ordinary sentence or paragraph after reading it. A wider range of reading is called for, and the interest of the pupils should be aroused as much as possible by the help of attractive Eeaders. It has sometimes occurred to me that a love of reading might be fostered among children