E.—lb

2

The public schools show for the year an increase of 419 in the roll-number ; of 326 in the number of pupils present; and of 297 in the number of pupils who passed one or other of the standards. In Standard VI. 77 per cent, of the pupils examined passed. Except in rare cases the promotions from class to class have been made by head teachers with satisfactory discretion. In a few schools of the smaller class the Inspectors had to take exception to some of the promotions, and in certain cases all the promotions were determined by them. In a few of the largest schools promotions have been determined with extreme strictness. In such cases there is a serious risk of discouraging meritorious pupils, for taking the work of a class for a second year is far from being an inspiring experience, and it should not be inflicted on pupils without good reason. Defects in reading, in arithmetic, and in composition, were the chief grounds on which promotions were objected to. During the year the public schools have in nearly all respects maintained a satisfactory level of efficiency, and noticeable advance has been made in some directions. The larger schools continue to be well conducted, and most of those with a staff of two or more teachers show steady improvement in efficiency. In the large group of schools taught by a single teacher, the success of the teaching varies within wide limits, but a very fair number of them are now as well taught as we can expect under the conditions that necessarily obtain in schools of this type. The schools in which the teaching and management are poor or inferior grow fewer year by year, largely through the retirement of teachers of little capacity. The younger teachers, who take up work in the smaller schools, are now, for the most part, energetic and enthusiastic, working earnestly to earn advancement, which it is difficult and often impossible to secure for them according to their deserts. This is, unfortunately, inevitable, as the small school is more predominant in this district than in any other of the larger education districts of the colony. The teaching of reading shows steady if slow improvement in all classes of schools ; but the progress is less noticeable in the " sole teacher " schools. In these, indeed, the difficulty of finding sufficient time for practice of reading is ever present, and hard to surmount. Most teachers are content to give their classes such practice as they can superintend continuously, but this obviously needs supplementing. Further practice may be given in a porch or even in a corner of the schoolroom, where supervision is only casual or intermittent. If good discipline and an earnest spirit of work prevail, this plan may prove very advantageous, and it might well be more generally followed. The progress in reading noted during the year has been chiefly in fluency, accuracy, and distinctness. In expression—the sympathetic modulation of the voice that proclaims a ready and vivid appreciation of the meaning—the reading shows little advance. The pupils of Standard VI., however, now read with greater accuracy and facility passages previously unseen, and display a more ready and continuous apprehension of the thought. A wider course of reading in the lower classes—those below Standard IV. —is still much to be desired, and if it were overtaken with reasonable thoroughness, the laboured and uninteresting hammering at the lessons in new books, still occasionally seen, would disappear. In a few schools three books have been read in these classes, and new lessons are then attacked with a power and an interest unknown where the preparatory course has been less complete. Without abundant and varied practice in lessons of a suitable character, reading cannot be easy ; and if it lacks ease it must lack interest and all the higher qualities that depend on interest and understanding. In some of our smaller schools the concentration of the pupils' attention on the mere recognition of the vocables is such as to put reading of an intelligent type beyond their reach.* Some of the Inspectors note improvement in the comprehension of the words and language of the reading lessons, but there is still much room for further advance. In all schools pupils of the upper classes should be trained to make adequate preparatory study of the language of the lessons in the principal reading-book, using for this purpose dictionaries and the help that friends and teachers would willingly give. For years we have been insisting on the importance of testing this preparation at the opening of every reading lesson, and nothing but systematic attention to this practice will provide the stimulus required to make careful preparation habitual. Notwithstanding this, pupils in the higher classes are often without dictionaries and are inexpert at using them. Even, in Standard VI. one occasionally finds pupils unable to avail themselves of the guidance in pronunciation that every dictionary affords. With older pupils it would be better to make them use a dictionary to discover for themselves their errors in pronunciation, than that the teacher should correct them offhand. In reading and the comprehension of what is read, as in other departments of educational effort, resort to self-help should be as freely used as possible. Teachers must never forget that they are training their pupils so as to read and to understand later any book they may wish to peruse, and that their methods should aim at giving them step by step the power to do this. The explanation by paraphrase of phrases and short sentences couched in difficult and uncommon language is an exercise for teaching in class. It now receives very considerable attention, and is on the whole very fairly taught. Work of this type is, however, too exclusively oral, and many pupils thus escape showing whether their interpretation is correct, or even whether they have reached any interpretation at all. A good share of this kind of work should be done in writing and on paper. This practice would soon reveal defects of comprehension that may otherwise be overlooked. The writing on paper of answers to questions, except at formal examinations, is too little used in our schools. If teachers would ask for supplies of a fair quality of printing-paper, School Committees would find it very cheap. It would be useful in many ways and especially in making it possible to have a fairly full record of the work of the more backward pupils. For many school purposes ruled foolscap paper is unnecessary.

* A thoughtful discussion of " The Aims and Methods of Teaching Reading " will be found in an address by Mr. Charles R. Long, printed in Melbourne for Messrs. Macmillan and Co,