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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 41

Report

page break

Report.

May it please Your Excellency

On the 25th of June last I received your commission, directing me to enquire into the state of public education in Victoria and into the best means of increasing its efficiency.

In order to carry out your instructions, I have visited about seventy schools in various parts of the colony, examining the more important ones minutely. I have put myself in communication, by conference or personal visits, with a great number of boards of advice; I have examined some of the chief officers of the Education Department on the routine of office work; and I have discussed the possible reforms which have been suggested at various times, or which have occurred to myself, with the leading schoolmasters, with the district inspectors, and more especially with the late secretary, Mr. Venables, and with the present acting secretary, Mr. Gilchrist. I have visited the industrial schools, several of the schools of design, and the schools of mines. I have conferred with the University Council as to the reforms most necessary to connect the University with the practical teaching of the country. Besides this, I have received constant communications from gentlemen interested in our national system of education, and anxious to show how it might be improved. Altogether, I have to return cordial thanks for a spirit of sympathy and co-operation which I have found everywhere, never failing and never wearied. Especially I have to acknowledge the energy and ability with which the secretary of the commission, Mr. A. T. Lewis, has seconded me throughout.

My work has required not only that I should make myself acquainted with the merits and defects of our own system, but with the systems that are applied in other countries. Here I page 2 have been at the disadvantage that no large collection of books on the subject of education has been formed in the department, or is to be found in any public library. The admirable reports of Arnold, Pattison, and Fraser, though still of the highest value, are no longer the record of actual systems. I have been able, however, to collect important information from a variety of different sources, and in some cases have found abundant material. Fortunately I can write from some personal knowledge, having taken part in a great variety of public examinations in England, and having studied the North German and United States systems in North Germany and America.

I have broken up my Report into two divisions. The first contains a general summary of the changes that I consider desirable. The second treats separate subjects of enquiry minutely and at length, and shows the way in which changes can be carried out. I have adopted this plan, though it involves some repetitions, because I believe most of my readers will only care to learn the general conclusions at which my Report arrives; and that it will be convenient to others, who take a special interest in a single subject, to be able to turn at once to the chapter in which that particular point is discussed.

With this explanation, I have the honor to submit the subjoined Report to Your Excellency.

Charles H. Peaeson.