E.—7A,

36

It is not enough merely to arrange for facilities for university study. If the community agrees to finance a costly system of training for four years it must have some guarantee that at the end of this period it will have the kind of teacher the necessities of the schools demand. A strict limitation of the right of choice of subjects is therefore necessary. On entrance to the college students should be carefully classified, and after full consideration of their qualifications, aptitudes, and interests, they should be advised as to the groups of subjects in which they should take advanced courses. There should also be provision for taking into the postgraduate year of professional training suitable graduates, who are not students of the training college, but who have elected to become teachers and whose subjects qualify them for work in a secondary school. In all countries where secondary education fulfils its proper function, and where it efficiently supports university education, boys and girls remain in the secondary school for the full course, which ends at about the age of eighteen. To provide such pupils with profitable work a staff of specialist teachers is necessary. These specialist teachers should be provided by a proper system of secondary training reinforced from time to time by " refresher courses." If, further, the system of public examinations of secondary schools involves, as it ought, the inclusion of leading secondary teachers upon the Board which deals with curricula, examinations, and inspection, another vitalizing influence will be brought to bear upon the secondary-school staffs. Next, as to the course of professional training. We find that the opinion is fairly general in New Zealand that no essential difference in training is necessary for secondary teachers, as distinct from primary teachers. We cannot subscribe to this opinion. Part of the training of secondary teachers, including teaching practice, can undoubtedly be taken with advantage along with that of primary teachers. But there are problems of the secondary school with which primary teachers are not concerned, and there is a method, an organization, and a life of the secondary school which is essentially different from that of the primary school. This truth is more apparent if, as we should, we confine the term " primary school " to schools attended by pupils of ages below twelve years. But it is in the wide domain of method wherein marked differences occur, and it is in this domain that special training is undoubtedly required. Methods of teaching young adolescents who are entering into the freedom and responsibilities of adult life are necessarily different from those adapted to children in the primary school. The problems of secondary education have not in the past received anything like the attention which has been given to those of primary education. For fifty years and more, training systems for primary teachers have been general, but secondary training is of much more recent growth. Capable lecturers in the method of secondary school subjects are not easy to find. They must have an advanced knowledge of the subjects they profess and be expert in teaching them ; they must have a wide knowledge of the principles of education, and a wide experience of the organization and life of the secondary school; and they must, in addition, be men and women with an inspiring personality. Little value is to be given to the claims of the " educationalist " " who discusses what he is pleased to call the pedagogy of a subject of which he knows little." In addition to a staff of lecturers in method a good secondary training-system must have a well-equipped secondary school for student practice. This involves a special staff of well-trained class teachers expert in their work and willing to do their best for the student teachers detailed for practice in the school by giving demonstration lessons for them or by supervising their practice. By reason of the large staff of specialists required it would seem best, therefore, to concentrate upon the training of secondary teachers at one university college for the present at least. It would certainly be better for secondary education in the Dominion that a well-equipped and staffed secondary training-system should be developed in alliance with the training college and university in one centre than that there should be a poorly equipped and staffed branch in each of the four colleges. So much depends upon the efficiency of secondary education and upon developing its higher reaches, that nothing short of the best possible should be attempted.

College students should be advised as to studies.

Specialist teachers necessary for pupils of seventeen or eighteen years of age.

Essential differences between training of secondary and of primary teachers.

Problems of secondary education now being studied closely.

A special secondary " practice school" necessary.