E.—lb

see it, but those are signs of improvement, more especially in those schools situated in the country, where the work in elementary agriculture is being taken up with enthusiasm. At Masterton and Greytown provision has been made for individual work in science, and at Carterton and Levin arrangements have been made to fit up rooma for thia purpose. The two diatrict high schools in the city have been following a grammar-school course, and designedly so, for they were established merely as tempoiary expedients for a high school, which we are glad to see the Government has now decided to erect. Advantage was taken by the Board of Mr. Robert Lee's visit to England to commission him to procure a supply of art photographs and engravings for diatribution among the achoola of the diatrict. Excellent aelectiona were made by Mr. Lee. They have been suitably mounted and framed by the local Committees, and throughout the district the varnished daubs which have so long done duty for pictures in our schools have been replaced by representations of ancient statuary, scenea and incidents of historical interest, masterpieces of Old-World architecture, and objects in natural history, which, both as subjects of interest and works of art, are an education in themselves. Last year we drew attention to the fact that some teachers did not pay sufficient attention to Regulation 5, which states : " The head teacher shall draw up for each term or quarter schemes of work for all classes of his school, &c." To assist teachers in observing the above requirements the Board issued a scheme of work-book, which has already been found very useful in curtailing the clerical work. The " Suggestions to Teachers," issued by the English Board of Education, have also been sent to all schools, with a hope that they will be carefully studied, though not necessarily rigidly followed. We recognise that these suggestions, admirable as they are, cannot be fully put into practice unless the classes in our larger schools are much smaller than at present, but they contain so many valuable hints that teachers will derive much assistance from them " in keeping abreast of current changes in the conditions of the service and with the latest developments in theory and practice." f i The requirements formerly laid down by the regulations for a certificate of proficiency were so low that in this district many children who would not have passed Standard VI under our old system were obtaining certificates which qualified them for " free places "in secondary schools. Inspectors in other districts met with a similar experience, and representations were made to the Department to raise the standard. This was done, with the result that last year the percentage of children who obtained proficiency certificates was considerably reduced. The recent Conference of Inspectors has recommended that the standard in English be still further raised. We purpose putting this recommendation into effect. All standard passes having been abolished, promotions from class to class are made by the head teachers. In determining such promotions, weakness in reading should be made an absolute bar, careful consideration should be given to composition and arithmetic, more especially to the former, and pronounced backwardness in both should be fatal. A teacher who has a child under his eye all the year should be able to form a better judgment of his capacity than an Inspector who sees him for one day only, but some of our teachers seem to forget that the work of the syllabus ia a year's work, and we often find children whose attendance has not been satisfactory receiving undue consideration when the classes are reorganized. The average ages of the children in each standard this year are much the same as in 1905, with the exception of Standard V, which has been reduced from thirteen years to twelve years nine months. This may mean very little; but as this is the standard immediately below Standard VI, and as the minimum requirements for a proficiency certificate have again been raiaed, our teachers muat recognise the necessity of using extreme caution in exercising the responsibility which has now been placed upon them. Teachers are now beginning to realise the greater freedom that is allowed in the syllabus in drawing up programmes of work; and while we have nothing but praise for the earnestness and conscientiousness of our teachers as a body of workers, we have found in many cases that their mistaken anxiety to take up too many subjects has induced them to overload their programmes, with the result that in some classes important subjects such as English have not received sufficient attention. In our report when the syllabus was first issued we endeavoured to impress upon teachers the necessity of clearly recognising that quantity was not asked for, that the programmes in the syllabus—except in English, arithmetic, and part of geography—were suggestive merely, and that the method of teaching was to be such as to arouse the power of thinking and independent judgment, and to incite the development of self-activity in the child. A great deal has been said about the overloading of the syllabus, and though many teachers have so dealt with it as to overload their programmes, it is quite feasible to draw up a scheme of work which will not put an undue strain on the pupils—most certainly will this be the case when the proposed rearrangement of the syllabus is brought into effect. If any teacher finds otherwise then let him at once remove the strain by curtailing his programme and concentrating his efforts on the more important subjects. If he is earnest and proves successful in arousing a true scientific spirit he will be doing what is required of him. A new spirit has been breathed into educational aims and methods—it is " a spirit of search as contrasted with the spirit of believe and ask no questions." In any transition atage from an old system to a new, there is certain to be want of balance in the arrangement of curricula, but we are pleased to note that this error is gradually being recognised. In some cases the claims of those subjects such as nature study, elementary agriculture, elementary science, or handwork " have been pushed," as Professor Sadler says, " so hard as to defeat the purpose of scientific education by depriving the pupils of their necessary training in other subjects, and especially in the power of expression in their own language . . . what is most to be aimed at is not the mature accumulation of scientific knowledge, but the cultivation of an attitude of mind which is interested in the study of nature, and the training of the habit of accurate observation and of the power of investigating the relation between pause and effect,"

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