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supply is very far short of the demand and that a shortage of teachers precludes improvements in almost any direction. The report of the Department of Education for Manitoba says that nothing in recent years has caused so much concern to tin; authorities as the marked decline in the number of suitable candidates for the profession of teaching. The United States departmental report states that the average service of the teachers in the United States is only five years. The shortage of teachers is, of course, the crux of the difficulty of the size of classes, but in order to solve the whole problem we would need larger training colleges to train the extra teachers, better inducements to young people, especially boys, to enter the profession, and finally additional class-rooms for the new classes, in spite of the fact that many of the buildings and sites are incapable of extension. In New Zealand the first steps are being taken to remedy the trouble, and further proposals for increases in salary for pupil-teachers, probationers, and training-college students as well as for adult teachers are now under the consideration of the Government. Education and Training of Teachers. ll would seem to be the tritcst of truisms that the educator must be educated, yet in regard, to this self-evident truth we have been as improvident as in other respects herein mentioned. Of 4,51(3 adult teachers in our schools, 3,245 can show no evidence of education beyond the standard reached at a secondary school by a boy or girl of sixteen or seventeen. Less than 450 show evidence of education beyond that provided in the Sixth Form of a high school. Of our adult teachers, 1,384 have no certified educational status. At least, 1,982 of the adult certificated teachers have passed only the minimum examination requirements, and recent investigations have shown how meagrely even these -modest requirements have been met by those who passed, and how deplorably insufficient is the education of the large number who fail. Unfortunately the position is becoming worse year by year on account of the attraction of so many boys and girls to occupations far less exacting than the teaching profession, but for which the community offers far better inducements. Our education system cannot by any possibility be effectively worked unless we take steps to deserve a full supply of properly equipped teaehers —for again we must repeat that the teacher is the vital and all-important factor in education. It would probably be regarded as a great advance if we were able to replace the 1,384 uncertificated teachers by others with even the present low minimum of educational requirements, but that would not even approximately meet the needs of the situation. The standard of the minimum examination must be considerably raised when the State is prepared to provide the means. Although at present we get better teachers than we pay for, the position is really serious. A perusal of the papers —not of the failures, but of the majority of those who have passed the teachers' qualifying examination—would arouse the gravest concern regarding the equipment of our young teachers for the most important and most essential work that any one can. be called on to perform. Reference is not here made to the lack of mere academic knowledge, but to the lack of even a passable knowledge of such subjects as English, history, geography, and arithmetic, in respect to winch important subjects the knowledge shown is in general little beyond that of pupils in the Sixth Standard. Steps are being taken to improve matters as far as present circumstances permit, but the position is almost hopeless as long as the lowest payment of all branches of the Public Service is offered to those entering the teaching profession. Provision will also need to he made for a more comprehensive teaching in the high schools of subjects such as English, history, and geography, which are so rich in cultural and humanistic values, but which are at present largely sacrificed in the interests of such subjects as Latin and mathematics. Steps should also be taken to ensure that those teachers who proceed beyond the minimum educational requirements now demanded on entrance to the profession should pursue a course of study differing in many respects from that generally taken in the ordinary j ...A& university course.