E.—2

10

It is worth while to remark, with regard to writing in copy-books, that children soon discover that it gives less trouble to copy one's own writing than to attend to the headlines. This discovery frequently leads to the perpetuation of mistakes that have once been made. A careful teacher will easily find means of correcting this tendency when once he has noticed it. 4. English. —When a teacher is dealing with Maori pupils he should make strenuous efforts to develop such rudiments of the critical faculty as may be in them, with the special object of enabling these pupils—after they have mustered the most elementary rules of syntax (which rules they should be taught in some informal and practical way)—(a) to detect obvious errors in English, and (b) to avoid making such errors. Native-school instruction in English should be carried on by the following means, none of them being neglected : (a) Vocabulary—Pupils should be carefully trained to pronounce English words and to know the Maori equivalents for them ; and, conversely, to be able to give the English equivalents for Maori words. (b) Oral translation—Short sentences such as might be selected from the " Native School Eeader " should be translated and re-translated until the work appears to be done without effort. Then a new set should be selected, and so on. Care should always be taken to get correct pronunciation and emphasis. In simultaneous work the readiest pupil must not be allowed to act as fugleman to the others, (c) Written translation —This should always follow, not precede, oral work. Sentences mastered in the way described in (b) should be written on the board in Maori by the master, and translated into English by the pupils. For Third Standard work short stories in Maori may be translated from the black-board into English after they have been carefully explained by the teacher and translated orally by the pupils. (d) Eeproduction —After a time pupils may be allowed to read a story in English and then reproduce it, their books having been closed, (c) Paraphrase—Pupils may, after explanation has been given, be set to turn moderately difficult prose into short simple sentences, or to turn easy poetry into very simple prose. (/) Criticism—This important matter was referred to at the beginning of the Daragraph. (g) Eepetition—Short stories or easy pieces of poetry should be thoroughly mastered, and then recited from memory with proper pronunciation and emphasis, (h) Conversation—Pupils should be encouraged to speak English as frequently as possible. All mistakes made should be corrected by the teacher. Elliptical answers to questions should never be allowed. (i) Pupils who wish to get a really strong pass should keep diaries, and should be able to write a fairly good English letter. Of course it is not expected that pupils will be learning to do all or even many of these things at the same time, but they should be well advanced in all the exercises before coming up to be examined for Standard IV. 5. Arithmetic. —ln every lesson properly so called the exposition of some new principle or detail, or the enforcement of an old one, should precede the giving-out of sums. In this way some new ground will be gone over in each lesson, and some progress will certainly be made. The teaching of this subject is generally far too abstract. From the very first easy problems relating to sensible objects should be given. For a long time these problems should each involve only one use of one " rule; " but at the earliest possible period children should, by training, be made capable of selecting the rule applicable to any given case of this kind. On the other hand, even abstract arithmetic is seldom rationally taught. Pupils learn how to perform a particular operation, but do not know why the process they employ is valid. From the teacher's point of view, it should seem more important that his pupils should know why than that they should know how. The former kind of knowledge is like a skeleton key that will open many a lock, the latter is like a common key that will open only one. 6. Geography. —Topography is a good thing in its way ; but it is not geography, although many teachers seem to think that it is : it may be most conveniently taught through map-drawing. In a true geography-lesson the name of a place or of a natural feature will hardly ever be mentioned, unless some interesting fact is to be spoken of in connection with it. Every successful geographylesson, too, is both articulated, and vivified by some principle. No better principle can be obtained than that afforded by continuous progress from beginning to end, as when the answer to each question is made the basis of the next. It is only a very skilful teacher that can so manage matters as to follow up this principle, while at the same time he is securing the end which he proposed to gain by giving the lesson; but an artificial principle is better than none, such, for instance, as would regulate a lesson on the New Zealand rivers that flow eastward, taken in order. 7. Singing. —The Tonic Sol-fa system is the best for primary schools, because it may be explained simply and scientifically from the very beginning, whereas the staff notation, though ultimately capable of much greacer development, is too intricate to be really understood until the whole of it has virtually been mastered. 8. Drawing. —lt is to be regretted that drawing is often regarded by teachers as useless. Those teachers, however, who take the necessary pains to master what they have to teach, and then use their knowledge systematically, find the drawing-lesson worth all the attention given to it, not merely on account of what is produced and the manual skill resulting from practice in drawing, but also because it tends to induce and promote the habit of viewing things carefully and in their entirety. The possession of this habit is, as it were, a light that is beneficially reflected upon the whole of the school work. 9. Needlework. —The object aimed at by teachers of needlework should not be to make their pupils work up large quantities of material into useful articles, but to enable them to perform all the prescribed operations with accuracy, neatness, and facility. The training needed to produce these results has a high educational value. It is to be regretted that some similar technical training suitable for boys cannot be found. A sewing-mistress should always bear in mind that no amount of work badly done can help to educate the girl that does it. 10. Drill. —Military drill is not without its use ; it makes children prompt and attentive, and accustoms them to obey orders instantly. Purely physical exercises, however, such as extension motions, gymnastics, and calisthenics, should receive the greater share of attention.