7

B.—ll

and self-determination are features of her school life. Over 90 per cent, of the girls take the domesticsoience or home-making course!, and a considerable percentage have concurrent preparation for commercial life by qualifying in typewriting, shorthand, book-keeping, and business method. Tn commerce, stenography is completely in their hands. Self-revelation. —The outstanding characteristic of the secondary-school period is the organization of the high school for the purpose of discovering a pupil's bent or vocational capacity for life, This, as I. have emphasized above, is secured by the " try-out " courses of the junior high school, and by the intensified training on vocational lines provided in the senior high school. Pupils are made to feel that school is a part of the real life of the workaday world. Bookish artificiality is at a minimum. Social Solidarity. —The full, range of practical testing in occupational openings provideel. in the junior high school breeds social sympathies and makes for the integration of society. The aim of the whole system is social solidarity. The Americans have long been nauseated by the social stratification and caste prejudices of the Old World, and have framed their free system of education on the broadest elemocratic principles. Free. Education. —The educational open highway to the university is far broader than ours, and effectually obviates the reproduction in the States of mediaeval and feudal notions of society. The Americans have never believed in social predestination. Consequently it has been, an easy thing for them to brush aside the domination of Old World academic theories and to substitute daylight business functioning for cloistral seclusion. It need hardly be emphasized that American education is absolutely free, from kindergarten to university, anel includes the' provision of free text-books and appliances. Vocational counsellors specialize in guiding pupils to the courses and vocations for which nature has framed them. Co-ordinators link up the theoretical work of the school with its practical counterpart in outside! life. Educational liaison officers integrate! the! various educational stages by seeing that all pupils graduating from the institution below are thoroughly familiarized, with the educational advantages offered by the next stage. This effectually ensures retention of pupils and continuity of work. Graduation is conelitional purely on satisfactory completion of certain specified units of work in each high-school stage, and this is the only prerequisite for university admission. Feminization. —The feminization of the teaching staffs is not to New Zealanel ideas a commendable feature. At the seconelary-school stage the boys at any rate need the tonic effect and reactive power of experienced male teachers. This applies to class-room work as well as to field sports. The following are the figures : — Men. Women. Per Cent. Per Cent. Kindergarten . . .. .. . . . . . . 0 100 Elementary ~ . . .. . . . . .. 10 90 Junior high school .. .. .. .. .. .. 30 70 Senior high school . . . . .. .. .. . . 70 30 University . . . . . . .. .. . . .. 90 10 B.ECOMMENDATIONS. My brief practical experience of American education has confirmed me in my educational radicalism. I beg to submit respectfully a few recommendations : — (1.) That a higher valuation be placcel upon oral English, and that a pass in English be conditional upon oral facility in the correct use of the vernacular. (2.) That Latin be further depreciated in the curriculum, and that every effort be made to eliminate the same from the Medical Preliminary. (3.) That the Council of Education, the Secondary Schools Conference, and the New Zealand Institute be asked to report upon the applicability of intelligence tests (especially the Ternian tests) te> New Zealand educational conditions. (4.) That the Secondary Schools Conference be asked to report upon the! advisability of testing the Californian system of self-government in our schools. (5.) That the provinces of mathematics be carefully scrutinized with a, view to eliminating immaterial portions. (6.) That the province of history be still further enlarged to include some, background of world history —with special application to Pacific peoples. (7.) That the province, of e;ivics include elementary economics, community civics, and current international problems, with special referenoe to questions affecting the Pacific — e.g., Anglo-American relations, Japanese expansion, efec. (8.) That junior high schools (if not already authorized) be promptly established in the four chief centres, equipped for the: prosecution of the following courses : (a) Professional; (b) commercial ; (c) agricultural ; (d) industrial or mechanical ; (c) domestic science. (9.) That the Education Department give sympathetic reception to the! resolutions of the recent Pan-Pacific Educational Conference (already submitted to the Department) with a view to assisting the realization of the! same' in our educational system, in the interests of international co-operation and peace. I have, &c, F. Milner.

Approximate Cost of Paper: Preparation, not given ; printing (470 copies), £10,

Authority: Mabctjs F. Marks, Government Printer, Wellington.—1921.

Price Oil.]