E.—l2.

ft. HOOBJW.I

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70. You said you did not believe in a bread-and-butter education, which would mean the sacrificing of mental training for considerations of more immediate utility. How do you reconcile this with the teaching of vocational subjects?— They are not bread-and-butter subjects. A bread-and-butter subject is a subject which may be turned to immediate cash value without necessarily giving the student even anything of the principles underlying his proposed profession. The vocational course takes the ordinary subjects, and relates them to his everyday life. A man or boy may take up agricultural science instead of magnetism and electricity, because the life around him is agricultural. In training a farmer you can give him as good a training in scientific method as in anything else, and he becomes fit to go on to another line of science. 71. The Chairman.] You could carry that a little further, and say that where a district is supported by a particular industry the vocational course there should have relation to that industry? —Yes, if it is the dominating industry. 72. Mr. Kirk.] Can there be reasonable teaching of agriculture in a primary or a secondary school? —I distinguished between the two the other day. I said that in a primary school it was an extension of nature-study, especially associated with the school garden; in such work the pupils become acquainted with the life of plants. That is part of pure science. 73. Which would be applicable to others —those going in for the agricultural course?— Yes, as a general training for life. 74. Apart from that, can reasonable agricultural teaching be done in the primary schools? Would it not be better to leave it for the technical schools, and not take up the primary and secondary syllabuses unnecessarily?—l would not leave the primary course without scientific training. The two important things are the mother-tongue and science. There are really only two subjects in a school —language and science; arithmetic is part of science. 75. Does not a science, to be taught properly, require a science teacher? —Yes; that is why we require all teachers to take science. 76. Are you getting sufficient of them?—We are getting more and more of them. 77. Is the inducement you are holding out to them to take up the science course sufficient to induce brainy men to take up that course? —You do not require a very highly qualified specialist to teach science in the primary schools. What you do want is persons who have got hold of the scientific method. 78. I am speaking of the secondary schools? —In the secondary schools we get more of them. It is partly the fault of the University that we do not get sufficient trained science teachers. For years the University has made the science degree much harder than the arts degree. But the necessity would still exist if you had difficulty in finding teachers. You would have to make more effort to find teachers. I would not propose to cut out science because you find it difficult to get teachers. 79. Is there a dearth of teachers efficient in teaching science? Is there any difficulty in getting them I —There are not as many as we should like to see; but there are a great many more than there used to be. 80. Then, to your mind, the inducements are sufficient?—l do not think they are, quite. 81. Have you any recommendation to make upon that point?— The community must make up its mind to raise the salaries of secondary-school teachers. 82. The Chairman.] In other words, you must hold out the hope of promotion to the man who has the qualifications?— That is so. The number of headmasterships is very limited, and they cannot all look forward to such positions. 83. Mr. Kirk.] In what relation to life, in your opinion, does the study of the classics stand? —I think that the opinion of many leaders of education nearly all over the world is now that the study of the classics is distinctly a special study. It is less and less looked upon as an instrument for general education. I should like to say that I began my study of classics by taking Latin at the age of seven. Most of my life up to the age of twenty-one was taken up with the study of Latin and Greek. I had a fairly complete classical education, as it is called, so that I am not speaking without a sympathy for the classics. But I hold, with an English headmaster who has made the latest declaration on the point, that for the average boy we are making a mistake in teaching him Latin—we are wasting his time. It is a special study, I hold, and I should be very sorry to see the standard lowered for those who take it up as a special study. I would not cut it out of the curriculum, but I would leave it as an optional subject in the secondary schools. I would keep it for those who are going on to higher work. 84. The Chairman.] But would not the professional courses require Latin?—l think we ought to review considerably the conditions of entrance to the professional courses. Latin would be required for the entrance to the course in which a man would take up pure classical learning. I think we should leave it in. We must have some optional subjects, and there are some whose tastes would lead them to it at an early age, but I would let students take a modern language first. 85. Mr. Kirk.] Are you satisfied, and, if not, why, that the teaching that is going on is sufficiently correlative between school-work and life-work?— You do not specialize in the primary course. Even what is called elementary agriculture is not specializing, but only putting the students into close contact with their environment. 86. Let the question relate only to the secondary schools?— Speaking generally, T do not think it is. 87. what recommendations have you to make to ensure that result?—l suppose you consider that it is a desirable result?—l hold that it is a desirable result. I consider that there ought to be several optional subjects such as I have indicated. I have indicated a general course, in which you could include Latin as one of the optional subjects, But I do not think- Latin" is the best classical subject. In my opinion Greek is far better.