Part I.

I had the honour some months ago to send in a preliminary Report to the Minister of Education on the working of our educational system. The object aimed at was to supply materials for a very important Parliamentary debate, which was then impending; and except for so grave a reason, I should have preferred to hold back the result of my enquiries till I could sum up altogether and conclusively. The tendency of every partial report is partially to mislead; and though I know of nothing that requires to be modified or corrected in the Report I then submitted, I fear the effect of what I must now add may severely disappoint those who learned only what was most acceptable from the statistics I was then able to give.

3. But the country had better face the fact that the Education

Want of organization

Department has never received any proper organization, and, as its field of exertion widens, will soon break down altogether if it is not remodelled. The first framers of the Act of 1872 were necessarily working in the dark, and unable, from circumstances, to do much that they undoubtedly deemed desirable. They could not tell how far they would be supported throughout by the page 4 mature feeling of the country, and they were compelled to defer the introduction of a rigid compulsory system till schools that would accommodate the population had been built. They sketched an admirable outline for future administration, and

Over centralzation.

were compelled to leave it only an outline. Unhappily the leading principle of the Education Department during the last five years has been to substitute supervision from Melbourne for local co-operation. It was a flaw, I venture to think, in the Act of 1872, that several of its provisions were rather tentative than complete, and that, in the case of boards of advice in particular, it rather indicated what work might be assigned to them, than gave them definite powers. This defect might, however, have been repaired if the department had gradually divested itself of its own authority where the school boards were prepared to take up the work. But the department has been over-trustful in itself, or unduly doubtful of the zeal and intelligence that were prepared to second it throughout the country. The result has been that many boards have been discouraged, and many competent members have withdrawn from seats on them, while the department is breaking down under self-imposed labours which it is unfitted to discharge.

School census.

4. To illustrate what I mean, I may explain in what way the compulsory system is worked at present. The first requirement, of course, is to know what children are due at school. For this purpose the department undertook the compilation of a special census in the beginning of the year 1877. Where possible, information was obtained from official sources; but the department had no special powers for obtaining this, the Minister did not ask Parliament for help, and, in many instances, the census had to be let out by contract. Where this was done, I have heard grave doubts expressed as to the accuracy of the returns. But the method itself seems to me most inadequate. A large part of our population is, and for a long time to come must remain, migratory. Such and such mining-fields are being deserted; such others opened up; and the same, I need hardly say, is the case with agricultural areas. Melbourne is growing rapidly, and many of our small towns are decreasing. A school census for the colony, therefore, would have to be taken every three months to be of any value, and would be partially useless soon after the returns have

Registration.

come into the Melbourne office. I believe a system under which parents are compelled to register themselves in rolls kept at the State school, and checked by the board of advice, is the only one that can be worked cheaply and efficiently. I have communicated page 5 with many school boards on the subject, and have received from all the most gratifying assurances that they are prepared to undertake this part of the work.

I hope to be able to show that, by a simple plan which is already in use in several schools, the school board may have the reasons for non-attendance put before it when it meets, so that its trouble in the matter may be of the slightest.

6. In the next place no adequate provision has been made for

No recognized test of private education.

testing the quality of the education given in denominational schools and at home. It is true that private schools are required to furnish returns of attendance which have some statistical value, but upon which no legal action can be taken. I have visited one private school, where the mistress apologized for the children's inability to write, and deficiency in all other respects, by observing that they were very good in texts and hymns. I hear of others which support themselves by not requiring attendance from their pupils. Of the 30,000 children who are page 6 nominally taught in schools not supported by the State, from two to three thousand are well taught in excellent middle-class schools, and a rather larger number receive a moderate education of the same kind. Some of the denominational primary schools are conducted by teachers of known competence, and can hold their own after a fashion against the State schools. But many, unless I am very much misinformed, deserve the name of school only by courtesy, and give no real education. Nevertheless, the State hitherto has made no provision for testing the instruction in these places. I venture to submit that our educational system is not complete till we exact the same attendances and an equal level of acquirement with those forced on the State school from those who prefer to get their education elsewhere. The Act of 1872 no doubt says that a child must be receiving "efficient instruction in some other manner." But so long as there is no provision to test the efficiency of the instruction given, these words are a mere brutum fulmen. I have come across one case where a whole family was kept at work on a farm, the father defying the truant officer with the statement that he was educating the children himself, and I know that somewhat less flagrant instances of this kind are not uncommon. Happily the religious objections, which keep a small section of the Catholic community from our State schools, do not, I have reason to think, apply to inspection.

No child must be withdrawn from inspection.

Mr. Butt stated in the Imperial Parliament that he was authorized by the head of the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland to say that they would not oppose Protestant inspection to test the efficiency of the education given in a Catholic college. I would submit, therefore, that the State must lose no time in organizing a system of inspection to which all children not in our State schools shall be compelled to submit. If such a system be properly organized, I have reason to believe that our best grammar schools will welcome it. Possibly some opposition may be apprehended from wealthy parents who keep tutors and governesses at home, but I think these will give way when they understand that our school system must break down, if any class is allowed to claim exemption.

The license of changing schools must be abridged.

7. Properly to carry out this, the license of changing schools at pleasure, which the community at present enjoys and abuses, will have to be curtailed. It is subversive of all discipline that a child threatened with punishment, or thinking itself insufficiently appreciated, should be allowed to transfer itself at pleasure to another school. Every change so made implies more work for teachers and less progress in the scholar; and where such changes are common, page 7 as is the case in all large towns, the State is most unfairly taxed to supply extra school accommodation and additional teaching power. Two schools, in which the numbers fluctuate between 200 and 800, are more costly and less efficient than two schools of 500 a piece. Many of these duplicate attendances are undoubtedly due to a cause we are bound to recognise and defer to, the fitful influence of the Catholic clergy in drawing scholars from the State schools into their own. But I apprehend no difficulty from this cause, as it is in the interest of denominational as well as of State schools that attendances should not be intermittent.

The restrictions I shall have the honor to propose will not altogether take away the parent's privilege of choosing the best among neighboring schools for his children, but they will give the children in each district the first claim on its school, and will make it matter of favour when others are admitted. At present there is no system regulating admissions; and a parent living close to a State school may find that its doors are closed against his children, because scholars from other parts have flocked in.

Again: the system in vogue of calculating average attendances by dividing the total number made by the sum of a year's attendance, is such that even the officers of the department cannot infer any accurate results. Thus, for instance, if twenty children have attended 4,158 periods of two hours in a year, they are counted as nine average attendances of 220 days each; though in fact seven will perhaps have averaged about 400 hours a piece, and have received a fair minimum of education, while thirteen have not even complied with the requirements of the law, and have page 8 practically learned nothing. My impression is, that in such a case the seven ought to be counted as attendances, and the thirteen as truants. The seven, barring defects of intellect, will be educated; the thirteen are growing up wild. I venture to say that the system I propose, under which children shall be divided into three classes—those who comply with the Act, those who all but comply, and those who fail to comply—will entail even less trouble upon schoolmasters and on the department, and will enable the State to know what it is really doing.

The legal minimum of school attendance has been fixed too low.

9. There is another point of vital importance in which, I think, the experience of the last five years shows that immediate change is desirable. The Act of 1872, and the Amending Act of 1875, fixed the minimum of school attendance altogether at 120 days in the year, or at 30 days in the quarter. The intention of the framers undoubtedly was, to make allowance for the cases in which a child's labour is of real value at home. But the effect of the Act has been, apparently, to diffuse an idea that 30 days in the quarter are all that Parliament deems necessary for a child's schooling; and parents are apt to consider themselves meritorious if they only fall short of this by a few days. I shall propose that in future the legal minimum be 50 days in the quarter, between the ages of 6 and 9; 80 in the six months, between the ages of 9 and 12.; and 60 in the six months, between the ages of 12 and 15; with a certain discretionary power to boards of advice to reduce these terms by not more than 20 per cent, in a few specified cases.^* I do not think that the increased scale I propose will bear hardly on the poorer classes of society in general. In the first place, a child's labour does not commonly begin to be of much value till it is about 12 years old; or, if valuable, is so at the cost of its health, which the State has a right to interpose and protect. But, in the next place, the school time lost between 6 and 12 cannot be replaced between 12 and 15, and, so far as it is then atoned

Economy of increased school attendances.

for, will be bought back at a most disproportionate cost. With a very slight increase in the efficiency of our country schools, and with the increased attendance I propose, every child may pass the standard at 12, and may then, if his parents wish it, begin to earn money. Now, assuming a boy's wages to average only 5s. a week, and a girl's only 3s., the wages of 45,000 children who would

^* I am glad to say the increased rate I proposed is already exceeded without compulsion in some of our best schools. A return lying before me from Mr. Pearce, of Daylesford, shows that in that school the average number for each child on the roll was more than 51days attendance in the Michaelmas quarter of 1877. Mr. Stewart, of Clunes, gets, I believe, nearly equal results; and there are probably several other head teachers equally successful. The average under my plan would be less than 15 days.

page 9 thus be liberated for 46 weeks in the year, would be equivalent to a gain of more than £400,000 a year to their parents. The strict discipline that shall compel education in the shortest possible time, will be incomparably cheaper to the taxpayer than the mistaken tenderness that spreads education over a great number of years. Meanwhile the State also will gain, as its schools will be less crowded, and the energy of its teachers less heavily taxed with intermittent scholars. I may add, that the vexed question of flogging in our schools will scarcely need to be discussed, when most of the elder children of neglected education have been weeded out.

10. I have given particular attention to the case of what are

"Gutter children."

popularly known as "gutter children" or "larrikins," the neglected or uncontrolled children of vicious or over-indulgent parents. Hitherto the practice of the department has been to abstain from sweeping these children into our schools, lest they should impair their tone, or to provide them in some school of a special character. The first practice, I need hardly say, is inconsistent with the whole spirit of a compulsory Act. The second seems to me to be introducing a distinction that may easily become dangerous. Half the children in a ragged school are generally such as might easily be made amenable to notions of decency and order. To mix these with the determinately rough and debased, is to make school a deteriorating influence; while there is every possibility that, if they were forced to attend ordinary schools, they would gradually imbibe notions of order, cleanliness, and good taste. On the other hand, some of the children are exposed to home influences of such a kind as must counteract all the discipline of a school, however excellent. Their parents are, perhaps, habitual drunkards; their brothers and sisters thieves and prostitutes. So long as the conduct of these children is unexceptionable, no one will grudge them their present privilege of attending the ordinary State school in their district. But, if they are truant or refractory, or habitually use foul language, the State ought, I think, in mercy to themselves, to deal summarily with them and remit them to a reformatory. Happily the class is not numerous; and I hope to be able to show that the administration of our so-called industrial schools, may easily be so improved that the economies in this direction will balance the cost of the innovation I propose. I may just add, that the position naturally chosen for

Existing ragged schools.

a so-called ragged school adds very much to the inherent vices of the institution. Such a school is designed to attract those for whom an ordinary State school would be too respectable; and it page 10 is therefore not unfrequently placed in the midst of the slums of a large town. The school in Little Bourke street is in an alley, and the children are often taught in the road for want of room inside. Not long ago two Chinese brothels were opened hard by, and the children could watch the customers going in and out during the class-work.

Extra subjects.

12. At present no provision is made by the State for giving any education except at primary schools and at the University But by the system of extra courses schoolmasters are allowed to charge fees for teaching such subjects as Latin, French, Euclid, algebra, and mensuration; and students are encouraged to attend these courses by exhibitions tenable at public schools and at the University. Apart from certain faults of detail, such as that these exhibitions are too poorly endowed and hampered with too many restrictions, the system seems to me imperfect in every way. In the first place it is mere accident whether the head master of a large school is qualified or cares to make money by teaching extras, and I could quote many instances of anomalous practice page 11 on this head, cases where no extras are taught in a large town, and cases where classes have been formed in a mere village. In the next place it seems unfair that children whose parents cannot afford to pay for extra courses, should be unable to win the blue ribbon of a State scholarship. Lastly, the actual result that the State exhibitions have been practically, till this last year, carried off by three schools in large towns has undoubtedly damped the energy of many teachers. Were this system to be continued, it would, I think, be wise to sacrifice the advantage of the general examination for the whole colony and to establish different centres for separate competing districts.

14. Even the scholarships I have assumed founded will not

Scholarships tenable at the University or at affiliated colleges.

supply the stimulus we require for all classes unless they are supplemented by others tenable at the University or at affiliated colleges. We want to give prizes that shall be most attractive to the class that is now least attracted to our schools, and this we may I think, assume with rare exceptions to be the class earning weekly wages or settled on small plots of land. In general a struggling yeoman, or farm laborer or station hand, or a man earning low page 12 wages in a large town, will not, I fear, be much attracted by the costless middle-class education which we offer his child between 13 and 17, and for which he must sacrifice its labour. I should hesitate myself to recommend a man having no business connections to take away his child from the plough or the factory on the chance that a knowledge of French and book-keeping may help him to a commercial situation. But if such a parent knows that his child, after its grammar school education, has a fair chance, being competent, of an exhibition that will enable him to train as a scientific farmer or a land surveyor or a mining manager; still more, if he understands that, in case he has given proof of special capacity, he will be taken costlessly through a University course, and conducted into a profession; in such a case, we may, I think, fairly expect that some of the strongest impulses of human nature—family pride, ambition, and parental foresight—will be enlisted on the side of our State system. Our middle-class schools are wanted and necessary under any circumstances. Parents in small towns complain that the State is subsidizing the higher culture in Melbourne by its endowment of the University, while it takes no thought for the small towns or for the class who come between the primary school and the University. But while this ground alone would justify the establishment of middle-class schools, their importance in enabling talent to rise from the position in which it is worst paid to that in which it is best paid, is not, I think, the smallest part of their use.

Practical uses of university education.

15. I am well aware that University education is regarded by many as no more than a costly luxury, which only men of some fortune are justified in allowing themselves, and which does little to promote the practical well-being of the graduate or of his country. I believe a very slight examination of facts will dispel this delusion. The University of Melbourne, being at present most inadequately subsidized and officered, attempts only to give degrees in Arts, Medicine, and Law, and certificates in Engineering. The practical use of the degree in Arts is to certificate schoolmasters, and hitherto, owing to the expense of a University education, the whole body of State schoolmasters, with rare exceptions, has passed into the State service wanting the certificate, which the public trusts and which the profession desires. The practical use of a degree in Law and Medicine is rarely doubted, and I will only observe that the cost of the faculty of Law is very trifling, and that in Medicine the number of students is far below the supply required for the wants of the colony. In Engineering, though the field of employment is comparatively limited, few page 13 students finish more than a second year's course, the demand for trained men being every year greater than the supply. Altogether, if we assume that half our State teachers ought to have a year's study at the University, there is room for sixty more in this department, and we ought to treble the present number of medical students if we are to supply our own population from our own chief school.

17. The importance of these to a young country cannot, I think,

Some advantages of a faculty of Practical Science.

be overrated. I would not wish to advance any extravagant claims for the value of university teaching in such a science as agriculture. College lectures will not make a stupid man, or a man without the special talents of a farmer, succeed better than page 14 his uninstructed but cleverer neighbour; the most that can be expected is that, of two equally clever men, the highly trained farmer shall be the more successful. Neither, again, can university professors, whose function is to impart, not to invent, be expected to enrich the country with new methods of agriculture or new machines. But we may fairly expect that the teachers and students in a department of practical science will be readier to try experiments, will know better how to distinguish what is sound from what is worthless, and will now and again introduce an improvement one or two years earlier than it might otherwise have been naturalized. Even on this moderate estimate the gain to the country will far outweigh the cost. Assume the better method introduced to represent a gain of only two bushels to the acre, and the time of its introduction to be anticipated by only a single year, and it will be worth between £200,000 and £300,000. Assume that a new machine, producing the results claimed for the American harvester, is popularized a year sooner than it might have been, the gain is £140,000. The smaller of these sums would alone defray the expense of model farms, agricultural colleges, exhibitions, and university lectureships.

Cheapest way of effecting the change.

18. The question remains whether, assuming these advantages to be real, the State may not attain them more cheaply than by abolishing fees at the University. A theory has been propounded that the State need only increase the number of exhibitions now held at the University, and leave that institution to pay its way. A short calculation will show that this view is untenable. By the scheme I propose, which is a more liberal one than any I have seen or heard propounded anywhere, the State will send every year 60 pupils from the Training College, and some number, not exceeding 100, from other quarters to the University. The fees for 160 pupils will average about £3,200 at £20 a piece; but as these will supersede the old exhibitions we can only calculate them at £3,000. Now it is scarcely too much to say that the University cannot defray its expenses at this moment when fees have not been abolished. It is not in debt, and it has accumulated some money from former years, but it is compelled to practise the most cheeseparing economy, and can just pay its officers and servants, spending nothing on books, apparatus, or medical preparations. The extra £3,000, which it would gain from the fees paid by the State for its exhibitioners, would not supply a third of the new teaching power that would be wanted, and would be given in such a manner that the State would exercise no control over its expenditure. I may point out further, page 15 that the fees now exacted in Melbourne are higher than is at all customary in other parts of the world. Even in Oxford and Cambridge the strict university fees are not more than a fourth what is charged here;^* and the expenses of a medical degree in Scotland are so moderate that some of our own students have found that they saved money by going home. The experiment of cheap or free teaching has been made with the highest success in Germany,^† and the courses of some of the best American universities are now altogether free. I look for several results from the introduction of free university courses. I hope many residents in Melbourne will attend parts of a course, even though they do not look forward to competing for a certificate or a degree. I confidently anticipate that many students will be attracted from other colonies by the better teaching and more liberal provisions of our University; and I trust that, in proportion as knowledge is popularized and made practical, the hall-mark of a university degree will be valued for the knowledge it implies, not as a badge of any social distinction.

19. The question how we may improve and retain our teaching

Payment and promotion of teachers.

staff is not less important than the question how to attract and teach our young. The teachers of Victoria are among the heaviest sufferers from the want of organization in our school system. The country votes every year a sum that is sufficient to provide liberally for their salaries, and our democratic institutions give them special opportunities of having their grievances enquired into and redressed. But there is no proper classification distinguishing the trained from the untrained teacher, and no system by which a teacher may be able to rise from one rank into another; the present method of payment by results creates constant irritation and sense of wrong, and the ablest teacher can only hope to remain what he is in a better paid school. The prevalent impressions are that a teacher careful about his income must teach mechanically, and manipulate his classes; that if he wish for promotion he must aim at securing Parliamentary influence; and that if he would be on good terms with the department he must give it as little trouble as possible. I do not say that these impressions are always correct. The "crammer" and "manipulator" will find himself now and again disappointed by the vigilance of inspectors, and I need not say

^* At Oxford a student pays £2 10s. for matriculation, £3 12s. for examinations, and £7 10s. for a B.A degree. At Cambridge the fee for matriculation is £5, for little-go and greats £2 10s., and that for the B.A, degree £7. College residence and private tutors are the great expenses of these universities, and it is no longer necessary to belong to a college.

^† In a German university "every ordinary or extraordinary professor is expected to deliver, gratis, two courses of at least two lectures a week, extending through the whole of each summer, on some materia point of the science he professes."—Perry on German Universities, Macmillan's Magazine, Dec. 1877, p. 150.

page 16 that heads of departments are often guided in their most incomprehensible acts by other and far better motives than aspirants for promotion ascribe to them. But I do feel that, where no fixed rules of promotion are followed, or where the rules are fixed but not known and cannot be guessed, the result is very demoralizing to the service concerned.

At present a few large incomes are made by the successful teaching of extra subjects. Now, the effect of this system is bad in several ways. The proper work of a head master is to organize and superintend, to give lessons in class-teaching, to examine, page 18 and, above all, to see that the teaching in every class is intelligent. He is drawn away from his proper work if he attempt to teach extras himself, and he is placed in an embarrassing position if he leaves what seems the higher description of work to an assistant. Then, again, it is very difficult, when the value of appointments is seriously raised by extras, to effect the transfers that are necessary from time to time. A man cannot be moved to a position for which he is specially fitted because he would leave paying classes behind him, or because he could not keep up the classes that a predecessor has founded. I believe, therefore, that the indirect abolition of extra teaching by the establishment of middle-class schools in the towns where the teaching of extra subjects is now found profitable, will very much facilitate the work of the department.

Range of a teacher's work should be increased.

23. On the other hand, I would slightly increase the range of the subjects that a teacher is bound to impart gratuitously. I see no reason why two books of Euclid and the elements of algebra and of the Latin language should not be taught in every upper sixth class; or why every teacher obtaining a certificate of teaching should not be expected to give lessons in drill and in singing or geometric drawing. As regards singing and drawing in particular, I must express my regret that the State has ever appointed special teachers. The general opinion of those schoolmasters I have consulted has been that the change works badly; that the special teachers can do no real good with the large classes assigned them; that their hours of attendance, which vary in every place, interfere very much with the timetable; and that all the instruction given might easily be imparted by the regular teachers. I may add that the heavy charge which the State sustains on this account (£13,000 a year) will increase rapidly year by year if the system is not changed, as every district thinks it a point of honour to have as many advantages as its neighbour. I would therefore suggest that during the next twelve months measures be taken for superseding the teachers who now give singing and drawing lessons. Some may be drafted into the regular service, which they left for their present work; and some may profitably be employed for a time in giving instruction to teachers in country districts, or in the Training College. The teachers of drawing will probably rather gain than lose in the long run, as, under the plan I propose, drawing will be subsidized at the University and at the schools of mines, and will be a subject in the high school course. Should this change be adopted, I would suggest that Friday page 19 afternoon, the time when attendance at State schools is most irregular, be made the time for drawing lessons in future.

24. As regards payment by results, the present system is very

Present system of payment by results.

complicated. The head teacher is paid a sum not exceeding 50 per cent, of his fixed income on an average of school ages, of intellectual proficiency, and of attendances at examination compared with school rolls. Thus certain deductions are made for every failure to pass in a subject required of the class, certain others if children who have been on the lists during the last fortnight are not presented for examination, and certain others if the children in a class exceed the average standard of age. Accordingly, if a district has been visited by scarlet fever and children have been kept away; or again, if the truant officer has swept a number of neglected children into the school and raised the standard of age in the lower classes, the schoolmaster is fined. I may give two instances of the way in which this system works, which came under my own observation. In the first, a child whose two sisters were in bed with scarlet fever, and who was evidently in the first stage of it herself, was produced from a side-room by the head teacher that she might be counted at a result examination. In the second, a head master whose discipline, teaching, and classification were declared good by the inspector, found his percentage reduced from 84 to 28, and his payment for results from £44 2s, to £15 8s., because he was teaching in a district where there had been no school till his own was opened two years before. When I add that the money loss is only part of the injury sustained in these cases, and that men, proud of their profession, value a high percentage as a distinction, and that this gentleman had constantly obtained 80 or 90 per cent, in former years, the mischief wrought by the present system may be imagined.^* It constantly leads to what I have before spoken of, the manipulation of classes.

Manipulation of classes.

A clever child of 6 or 7 is shifted up into a class where the average age is 10 and 3 months to make up for a balance of dunces over age. The inspectors think they are able to detect this delusive classification. I have tested their powers occasionally by examining their reports on schools where I had private information that the classification was manipulated. In one aggravated

^* I append two reports on a school in another district written by the same inspector within the same year—

• 26th April 1877.—General inspection.—'The school is in excellent working order and the instruction is useful and systematic. Class lessons are successfully given. * * The order and discipline are very satisfactory.
• Nov. 30. 1877.—Inspector's percentage, 70. 375.—Either the classification is erroneous or the instruction is defective.

In other words, a highly competent inspector finds the classification good when he examines casually, and bad when he examines for results. Assume that the rolls have been "stuffed," as he suspects, in anticipation of his coming, and we get a fair sample of the natural effects of the result system.

page 20 case of this kind, I thought I could detect that the three inspectors who had examined the school during the last three years had all doubted the classification; but they had none of them given much weight to their doubts in the determination of results. I believe the whole system to be faulty. It is the duty of the district, represented by the school board, to enforce attendances; and if the parents are reluctant to send their children, because the teacher is incompetent, it is then the duty of the school board to represent the matter to the department. The question of age will probably adjust itself after a short time, when our children have all been reclaimed from habitual truancy. But under any circumstances, proper classification is so essential to proper teaching that no master ought to be tempted to place children by any rule but that of their proficiency.

Practically I do not think it will be safe to attempt carrying on

Proposed inspectoral staff.

work with a smaller staff than an inspector-general, an adjutant inspector-general to take his place in Melbourne or in the country, page 22 as he is called away from either, and 20 travelling inspectors. Of course I assume that the extraneous work, clerical and examining, which the inspectors now discharge, is mostly to be committed to other hands, though it will always, I think, be desirable to secure senior inspectors as examiners in the art of teaching.

More thorough general supervision of the inspectors required.

29. The changes I have suggested will indicate what I regard as one want in the present system, the want of efficient general supervision. The inspector-general's chief work should be to secure unity of method and tone in the inspection throughout the country, and this cannot be attained while he is doing office work for the greater part of the year in Melbourne. But as his presence at the head office will sometimes be indispensable, I propose that he should be aided by an adjutant, to be chosen from the senior inspectors, who shall take his work at whatever post he is called away from. One or other of these gentlemen will commonly, I hope, be able to act as judge where a board of advice demands a court of enquiry; and I am convinced that the personal visits of a superior officer to different parts of the country will relieve the page 23 department from many of those protracted appeals and complaints which are now a great source of annoyance and weakness. The only important change which I would suggest in the inspectors' work is, that they should henceforth do invariably what they often do now, make the teacher of every school or class correct the answers to the papers they have set before looking over them themselves. In this way they will be able to detect more thoroughly than at present how far the instruction given is responsible for the scholar's mistakes. Under the new system it will not be necessary or desirable that they should give notice on what day they are going to examine for results except in the months fixed for the examination of high school pupils; but it is desirable that they should let the board of advice know confidentially on what day they will be in the district. As they will no longer have to waste several hours in checking lists of names and computing ages before they proceed to examine for results, they will be able to spend more time in testing intelligent teaching; and I venture to recommend as specially important that exercises in English composition be substituted to some extent for exercises in analysis. However useful it may be for a child to reduce a sentence to its component parts, he will gain more by learning to write a letter or to draw up a summary.

30. In its desire to watch everything from Melbourne, the

Boards of advice should be allowed to expend small sums on repairs.

department has kept the power to make even the smallest repairs and improvements in its own hands. If the tap of a pump gets out of order, or the pale of a fence is displaced, or the slabbing of a well caves in,^* the head teacher, unless he likes to incur the risk of having a claim disallowed, must communicate his wants to the department; the department directs the district surveyor to report when he next goes to the school; and an interval of several months often elapses before the authorization to spend 5s. has been received. Meanwhile it may happen that serious damage is sustained by the delay, or that a trifling injury is aggravated by neglect. The department thinks that it saves money by this mode of procedure; and that local authorities, having the certainty that they should be reimbursed by the State, would spend money more freely, and would be less careful to see that it was well applied. I believe the chief economy is in the fact that teachers are often unwilling to make their real wants known under such a system. But setting the waste of clerical work in Melbourne, of surveyors sent from a distance to report, and of injuries aggra-

^* These are all actual eases that have come under my notice.

page 24 vated by neglect against the assumed extravagance of a board of advice, I am very doubtful if the State gains anything. I would mention the case of planting trees in particular as one instance of work that could be thoroughly well done by men living on the spot, and that has been repeatedly mismanaged by the department. I believe it is possible to trust the school boards adequately, without giving them blank cheques on the Treasury. I find that the petty repairs for 1876 averaged a little more than £5 to a school. I propose that every school board be authorized to spend in that proportion for every school under its care; so that, for instance, where a school board has six schools to superintend, it shall have a "petty cash" credit of £30 a year, which it may spend on one or distribute among all. In the few cases where a board has only one school, and that a large one, under its charge, this sum will require to be slightly increased; but an allowance of £10 will probably meet these cases. Of course the school boards must regard themselves as trustees for the public, spending as little as they can; but I believe this object will be best attained if they are allowed to carry on the balance of one year to the next; and on the other hand are never allowed to overdraw.

Greater responsibility of boards of advice under the proposed system.

32. Altogether the changes I propose will throw more work on the school boards throughout the country, will invest them with new powers and responsibilities, and will define their office and page 25 rights very sharply. Under the Act of 1872 they have no real rights except to visit the schools in their district, and to suspend a school teacher for misconduct. It is true the Act recommends that they should write letters on a great variety of subjects, and many boards have complied with the suggestion; but my informants have commonly agreed in declaring that they get no result from their correspondence except a formal acknowledgment of its receipt. I have said that only school boards can work the compulsory system or care properly for the maintenance of our buildings; and the first Act sufficiently implies the opinion of Government that school boards can assist the department in watching over the instruction given. But there is another function

Prizes.

which may, I think, with propriety be left to school boards; I allude to the giving of prizes, llecommending, as I do, that the State should found some 500 scholarships for our State schools, I am not prepared to recommend that it should incur an additional outlay for prizes; and I am the more disinclined to do this, as I think there is danger lest the State, if it does too much, should destroy all interest and activity in the various districts. Practically, school boards and schoolmasters find no difficulty where they are so inclined in raising money for prizes. In large townships this is commonly clone by subscription, and in outlying districts by social gatherings, concerts or readings, in the schoolroom. At Mortlake I found four sets of prizes given in the school, two by large proprietors in the district, Mrs. Neil Black and the Hon. W. Bayles; and two by gentlemen resident in the town, Mr. Puckle and Mr. Greave. Even in small country places, such as Stanley or Penshurst or Broadford, there seems to be no difficulty in raising from £10 to £15 by an evening entertainment. The public spirit on this point being so excellent, I think we may leave it to do its work without State interference. The competition which our new system of scholarships will excite is pretty certain to put the most sleepy districts on their mettle.

33. I have taken great pains to ascertain how far the erection

School building.

of school buildings has been economically carried out by the department. I need not say that at a time when so great a migration of population is going on it must sometimes happen that a school is deserted by its village. This has been the case very largely in the Western districts; and now and again a school has been closed, as at Byambynee, or will have to be closed, as at Bokhara. Generally, however, where a school has been erected or enlarged without necessity, the inspector-general or his subordinates have reported against it or have declined to page 26 advise it; and the action taken seems to have been due to local reasons or to the special decision of the Minister. Thus the importunity of the board of advice procured on 16th February 1877 the authorization for a new school at Yan Yean, although the district inspector reported against the grant, on the ground that the population was leaving the district, and that all remaining families were provided for, and though the inspector-general coincided with this view. Similarly, in November 1876, an order was given to erect a new school at Gowerville in accordance with a request from the board of advice, though a public meeting had been held to protest against it, and though the district inspector and the inspector-general had reported against it. Not less curious is the case of Greensborough, where four months after a new school building had been designed by the department on a scale supposed to be adequate to local wants, and three months after a tender had been accepted, the Minister (19th May 1877) ordered an infant room to be added to the proposed building.^* Of course a great number of districts are as importunate for unnecessary schools as the three I have instanced; and the inconvenience and loss they entail on the State is unfortunately not limited by the few hundreds spent on a school building and the salary of a new teacher. Complaints instantly come in from the schools that are drained of pupils and lose in income; and the department has to arrange for transferring competent teachers elsewhere, to the loss of the parents whose children were studying under them. Nevertheless, as it seems undesirable to tie the hands of the Minister in so important a matter as school-building, I can only recommend that henceforward the departmental report for the year should always contain a list of the new school-buildings authorized, with a short statement of the population accommodated by each, of the distance from the nearest school, and of the reasons why an additional building was required.

Proper site for a school.

In one respect the department has, I think, been unwisely economical. It appears not unfrequently to have built a school on land that had scarcely any recommendation but that of being State property. Thus the desire to avoid purchasing land has caused schools to be placed more or less outside the real town at Maryborough, at Clunes, at Belfast, at Warrnambool, at Kilinore, at Colac, at Beechworth, and at Benalla. Even where the object has been, as at Beechworth, to secure a large playground, I am inclined

^* A minor instance of misjudged expenditure is where a school is built on too large a scale for the population. Thus at Beech worth the resident school population has never exceeded 700, some of whom are provided for by a middle-class school, but the building erected will accommodate 1,000.

page 27 to doubt this policy, and believe that the State would have done well to sell its land for what it would fetch, and carry the purchase-money to the account of the cost of land equally suitable in a central situation. But the reason seems sometimes, as at Clunes, to have been only to obtain a picturesque situation; though the advantage of a pretty site on the brow of a distant hill is inevitably purchased by defective attendances in the younger children. At Benalla the site is so remote from the new town near the railway station, that three primary schools are supported by private attendances, and the department will soon be forced to erect a second building. I hope it may be an instruction in future to Government surveyors laying out new townships, that they shall invariably reserve a block of two acres, or thereabouts, in what appears to be the most central situation, for a State school.

35. Another change imperatively demanded in the organization

Appointment of a second examiner.

^* Report on Public Education in Victoria to the Queensland Commissioners, p. 193.

page 28 of the office is the appointment of a second examiner, as these officers are technically called in England (where 27 are employed in the London office), who may sift the correspondence and make a short précis of it for the use of his chief. One of the inspectors is at present detailed for this office, hut he is overworked, and is, practically, helped through his duties by the inspector-general, who is kept in town for the purpose. I do not think it is an overstatement to say that the appointment of a fresh examiner, trained for the work by previous duty as an inspector, would relieve the inspector-general of three months' work, and do the work now discharged by two or three clerks in addition. The task of separating important from unimportant documents, of seeing at a glance what the gist of a communication is, and of putting it into such words as to be intelligible to others, is not one which can be confided to young and inexperienced hands. The appointment of this officer will, however, be more than counter-balanced by the abolition of the whole office, known hitherto as the boards of advice branch, and employing a head and eleven clerks. The work these gentlemen do will be mostly done in future by boards of advice, and the reduced correspondence which boards of advice will in future carry on with the department can be managed, I think, by the second examiner and a single clerk.

The Education Department to he brought under the Civil Service Act.

36. At present the clerks in the Education Department have not been brought under the Civil Service Act, though the Act of 1872 implies (section 22) that they are to be so. I have already alluded (p. 21) to the necessity of promulgating some scheme by which retiring pensions may be assured to the teachers. It is even more necessary that all examiners, clerks, accountants, and other persons employed at the head office, should be classified, and rise by well-understood rules. The large use now made of supernumeraries is fatal to real efficiency. These gentlemen have no certain position, and may, therefore, leave the service when they are not wanted, and require, in some cases, to be retained by higher pay than the officials generally receive. The existence of two classes of officers doing the same work, yet holding different positions, is a constant source of jealousy and heart-burning. In reporting on the position of the new inspectoral staff, I arranged the schedule of incomes so as to correspond to classes in the Civil Service. Having examined a plan which the late secretary, Mr. Venables, drew up, for bringing every clerk in the office under the rules and rates of pay of the Civil Service, I may report that this can be done without difficulty, and am prepared, if it is wished, to arrange the details. But the question of retiring page 29 allowances to so vast a body of men as the officials and teachers in the Education Department ought, I think, to receive separate and careful consideration, if the country is not to incur heavy liabilities in the future.

38. The effect of the changes I have proposed, if they are

Effect of the proposed changes on parents, children teachers, and inspectors.

carried out in their entirety, and can be worked successfully, will be very great. The percentage of school attendance will be raised from 46 at most to at least 80. Parents will be obliged to register their children of school age, and will be restrained from moving them without leave from the district school, and will have to send them more regularly between the ages of 6 and 12. But these slight burdens will be amply counter-balanced as the children will be set free for work at 12, and will be able to continue their studies without cost, or at the smallest possible cost, in high schools and at the University. Professor Huxley's aspiration that the State should provide^* "a ladder reaching from the gutter to the University, along which every child in the three kingdoms shall have the chance of climbing as far as he is fit to go," will have found its first realization in Victoria. The teachers, on whose co-operation we depend for these results, will find the standard of professional training raised, promotion determined by fixed rules and for published reasons, and the prizes of their profession augmented by inspectorships and the headships of middle-class

^* Fortnightly Review, Jan. 1878, p. 57.

page 30 schools. The pupil teachers will find the labours of their last year lightened, at the same time that the standard of qualification is raised, by a regulation which will rather lessen than add to the teacher's labours, and which can be carried out at the smallest possible expense to the State. The inspectors will have grievances of long standing removed, and being eligible for the headships of high schools, can look forward to a pleasant exchange of duties when the work of district inspection has become tedious or unduly severe. The gentlemen who have come forward to help the State as boards of advice will find themselves relieved from many needless formalities, and invested with important powers for good. Lastly, the new high schools and the proposed faculty of Practical Science at the University will, I hope, tell on the whole character of intellectual training in the colony; will strip off some of the gloss that seemed to attach to degrees in proportion as these were expensive and useless; and will give a higher meaning to the work of the farmer, the miner, and the mechanic, as they find that learning and thought can increase the fruits of the earth or the produce of the factory as well as mellow the mind.

Economy effected by the proposed changes.

39. The cost of these changes can only be roughly estimated, but may be determined within certain limits of variation. An estimate prepared in the department shows that there will be a gross saving of more than £49,000 a year by the new schedule of teachers' salaries. About a fourth of this is gained by slightly increasing the numbers taught in a class, an arrangement which will not diminish efficiency, if attendances are more regular than they have been. The remaining three-fourths are obtained by reductions in salaries. These will, I hope, be less felt at this time than they would have been at any other, as the new inspectorships and the proposed high schools ought to provide for twenty of our best teachers, and so to cause a very general promotion. Besides this, the increased attendances will have the effect of raising many salaries. But as there will still be some cases of hardship, especially among female teachers, I propose that the Minister should be empowered to grant, in the present year only, ten good service pensions of fifty pounds, tenable by the recipient during service, ten of thirty pounds, and twenty of ten pounds. Thirteen thousand a year will be saved by the regulation that class singing and drawing are in future to be taught by members of the regular staff, and £2500 by the similar regulation about drill and singing licenses. Were all the schools in the lowest class to be made half-time schools the page 31 saving would be enormous, but I assume this to be impracticable and allow only for a hundred amalgamations with a saving of £4,000. Lastly, I calculate on gaining £1,500 by the reduction of clerks in the offices; £2,000 by the remodelling of the training system; £4,000 by substituting registration for a census; and £2,500 by transferring the children now in industrial schools to orphanages. The economies amount on paper to £76,500, and will actually realize, I think, at least £60,000, after the growth of schools has been allowed for. The charges I propose to create are, £2,000 for an increased staff of inspectors and a second examiner; £1,200 for additional pupil teachers, to take part of the work of those in their fourth year; £1,000 for good service pensions (a temporary charge); £25,500 for high schools, high school inspection and exhibitions; £1,000 (additional) for schools of mines, and £23,000 (additional) for the University. This shows a charge of nearly £54,000 against £60,000 economized.

Cost of the proposed changes.

I do not say that our system, so constituted, will be a cheap one, but I believe that it will be more efficient as well as cheaper than it has been, or than any English speaking people possesses; and that the chief causes of the startling growth in expenditure will have been removed when small schools are amalgamated, and when every teacher is trained to give instruction in singing, drawing, or drill. A time may come when educated men will be comparatively common, and when the honour paid to the teacher will be as great among ourselves as it is on parts of the continent, so that men will look to the social position rather than to the pay of a schoolmaster or a professor in choosing their walk in life. Meanwhile, we can best hasten the advent of that time and of that economy by increasing the opportunities for the higher culture.

40. Let me say, in conclusion, that I should regret it deeply

The changes proposed are recommended as relatively not as absolutely best.

if any portion of this report were supposed to convey my notions of an ideal system. My commission directed me to enquire what was best for Victoria, not what was best absolutely, and I have carefully rejected the consideration of all theories that did not seem to be directly practical. For instance, my own judgment would lead me to assign a larger place to science than I have done in the scheme for high schools, and to substitute German for Latin, but I felt that it would be difficult as it was to provide teachers who can give instruction in science up to the point I have recommended, and I knew that the value of Latin was held strongly by a large part of the community, and above all that to discard it would be to sacrifice connection with the page 32 University. So again, no one can feel more strongly than I do that a University ought to contain some provision for research as well as for teaching; and that a geologist, such as Mr. Selwyn was, a botanist like Baron von Mueller, an astronomer like Mr. Ellery, ought to be in some way associated with the counsels and labours and honours of the University. The Smithsonian Institute of Washington has shown what enormous good can be done by men kept to their special work of discovery, and the French practice of now and again releasing a professor, with a special mission (as M. Renan was sent to explore in Palestine), gives a hint of another kind that may be fruitful of use in times to come. But the work immediately in hand seems sufficient for the day; and I have no fear that a community, educated as the next generation among ourselves ought to be, will long remain indifferent to the claims of speculation and research.