Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 71

The Out-Look of our Secondary Schools

page break

The Out-Look of our Secondary Schools.

In selecting a subject suitable for a paper, or as I see your secretary has put it in the syllabus—an address, to read before the Institute I think that subjects having an indirect bearing on primary work should be preferred to subjects directly in the line of work of the members as a class. Care should be taken that the members when met together get something more refreshing than a discourse on the ordinary routine work of a teacher's life. If the subject chosen is too closely connected with the internal working of the schools, the attendance and interest manifested is apt to be confined to members of the profession. Outsiders though interested in educational matters generally wilt find themselves out in the cold and act accordingly, and the good which would accrue from the wider acquaintance will be lost. I question alao whether teachers themselves during vacation would take excessive interest in anything which has too much of the blackboard and chalk about it; and, further, the opportunity of widening our acquaintance is lost. We want to draw one another out, we want to hear and discuss the views of outsiders regarding subjects closely allied to teaching but not actually teaching, we want to raise up something of an ideal standard that will make the profession think and work in certain lines, real use their correct position and get into thorough sympathy with the great mass of the community, in the future development of which they play so important a part. Take the programme of any edical congress or any conference of scienfic men and examine the subjects. On and all of them yon will find are subjects outside of their everyday [unclear: practe,] away out on, the frontiers of the knowleqe of their respective departments. It is ot desired that we should aim at such a higstandard here, but we will do our beat to understand our position in the State; we will do our best to establish a connection with our secondary brethren—perhaps touch the up a little, communicate to and haveeommunicated from them fresh life and [unclear: vigur], and draw from their wide experience at opportunities for observation a fiood of use information; we will, if aught can [unclear: I] learned by such a course, seek counse of professors, and on the claim of the [unclear: edcation] of the child being the education other man claim kindred with the greatestducationalists of the day. Our positio justifies, nay more demands, such a coursen the interests of all.

Apart altogether from [unclear: theieoretical] connection of the secondary [unclear: wilbrimary] work, every true teacher has a stag interest in our secondary system. In [unclear: the] own school—it may be in some out of the way place—how is a teacher to find ron for his ambition but through our sendary schools where the products of his eay training may leave the quiet country sideand attain the highest positions in Church and State? It is true that teachers in onlying districts page 2 have pleasures of their own—the Inspector's annual visit, for example—but even these grow monotonous. It is very nice to be told that Mr A manages standards 3, 4, 5 and 6 well, Miss B secu es the attention and respect of the infants and standards 1 and 2, that the time-table is carefully thought out and closely adhered to, that the class rooms are scrupulously clean and tidy, and the registers neatly and carefully kept and accurately made up to date. But if that same report came in several times in succession no one wild say that its result would bring a thrill of pleasure to the recipient. We may therefore expect to find a warm interest manifested by primary school teachers in our sccondaiy system and closely thought out views regarding its present position in the educational system of the colony and to the factors which are brought to bear upon it as the years roll by. To this critical audience an amateur presents his views.

To fix the minds of my bearers to some definite text for the paper, let me here state and impress upon all a fact which is intended to be present to the writer and his audience throughout, that the secondary schools are made for the young, not the young for the secondary schools. This principle appears manifest at a glance but it is wonderful how often it is overlooked, and indignant complaints are heard of our schools being shamefully treated by purents and others, let us therefore see and bear that clearly in mind.

As a corollary to this statement of the position of our secondary schools I would say that the schools should take care to develop along the lines of a healthy popular demand. But as this is sure to be widely challenged it will be necessary to do more than make the bare statement, the subject must be carefully thought out. The consideration of this question therefore will be reserved until the recruiting area for the schools has been examined and analysed. I desire to state here that I only intend the paper should be of colonial application though I am aware of the great eagerness to look for everything connected with the secondary system to the old established schools of the Mother Country. It is taken for granted that the lessens to be learned from the long established and alow growing schools of England, with its comparatively stationary population and handsome and liberal endowments, with halls crowded to the doors with pupils, with the associations which gather round the school history of the world's great men and which crop up in connection with the very rooms and desks occupied by the present pupils, with the comparative immunity from political and State control, it is taken for granted I say, that the lessons to ba learned from these are peculiarly applicable to the Colonies, where the schools are newly established and developing with lightning rapidity, where the population is continually flitting from place to place, where there are no private endowments, few pupils, no associations and where there is direct State control. Without saying that this is not a self evident proposition I will here state that we will he guided by what appears before us to be the objects and aims or our system and try and evolve something without the assistance of other systems and the experience of other lands. I may further say that I make no profession to treat the subject exhaustively. It is a rule that a subject is always treated from the pergonal standpoint of the writer and in an important subject like education where its ramification are endless, any one man can do little more than touch the outer frings of it, it is for the hearer to put together the views expressed by various classes of men and derive therefrom some general principle—the ratio decidendi of the lawyer—for his guidance.

We may take it for granted that the critical tone of the times will only allow the existence of any institution if it can justify its own existence by showing good and substantial work done, perhaps not even then will it secure its existence but certainly without such justification its days are numbered. The outlook then is controlled by the work aimed at—if accomplished, and the question of accomplishment opens up as a field for consideration the changes which are being gradually introduced into trades and professions, and the bringing about of a state of things wherein the good once obtained from secondary schools is being sought and obtained in other directions.

Regarding the work which the schools are called upon to accomplish it may be taken for granted that whatever is wanted to com plete a well finished and substantial educa tion after the pupil has left a primary school is the peculiar province of the secondary school. The custom of various schools to overlap the primary work is only to pave the way for making the most out of the secondary course, and is not intended for an assertion that secondary schools should work with anything like an infant department.

Once we understand the field of work accomplished and the field of work untouched, and gain clear ideas of the social or other changes which will in the future increase or diminish the one, and diminish or increase the other the outlook is no great problem to solve. I would suggest for your consideration that our secondary schools perform a page 3 dual work, A, as an end to themselves. B, as the connecting link with the Universities.

As an end in themselves they present nothing corresponding to the end aimed at in an academic course, as a pupil following up a good education for the mere possession of such would never think of retiring so early. The end in itself then resolves itself into a lower grade of example B which I have just mentioned, in the form of a connecting link between the primary schools and certain trades and professions. The school may be utilised, first, for the sole purpose of preparing for some trade or profession as in the case of lawyers, teachers and engineers oE a second grade, dentists, chemists, architects, commercial men, and a host of others. This secondary school preparation may be called for by the fact that some examination has to be passed before entering the profession as in the case of law, and that may be the sole reason for attending a High school. Again the schools may receive pupils because the professions which they wish to follow up are intimately connected with simple combinations of the sobjects taught in our secondary schools, as for instance, civil engineers and archi tects, on account of their connection with mathematical subjects, chemists on account of the sciences taught, and others on similar grounds. In this respect the High school is but a technical school. Lastly, a sound education may be deemed to be of advantage to the pupil for future work whatever it may be, and the school may be selected on that account. This is one of the main aims of the system and every effort should be made on the part of those connected with it to show that the confidence placed in it in this direction is not misplaced.

There is yet another class of cases where secondary education is the terminus of study, where it la determined on financial grounds or on grounds which are very intimately connected with the capacity or incapacity of the pupils. Under this heading come all those who attend the secondary schools simply because their parents are able from a financial point of view to give them the best education going until something turns up, when they are immediately sent to wock. The tast class of all where further prosecution of work is due to inability brings us to the class which it is the duty of the State strictly to prohibit going any further and to gat at once shifted into a more congenial sphere without further expense or outlay to the community.

Look now at the second class, the connecting link with the Universities: Regarding the uses oi our schools in the way of providing a connecting link with the Universities, we may safely say that all the students who carry on their education without a break, will, after leaving our primary schools, pass through the secondary. A boy or girl who has made reasonable progress in primary work and has had every facility for obtaining a good High School education should be well able to enter a university at 17 years of age, and it is a moot question whether delay after readiness does not mean loss to the pupil, in many cases leading to the curtailment of his or her college course by One or two years. When the writer was a student at college it was a recognised thing that for an intending honours Student to delay a year in any of the junior classes meant comparative failure, and I suppose a like rule holds good in this case. After all it is really from that time onwards that the permanent bent of life work begins to be apparent, and a course of four or five years at college just terminates at a nice time for completion of a literary education and laying the groundwork of one of the higher professions. These pupils who thus pass through the High Schools are destined for law, medicine, higher engineer ing and teaching, and mining, and a some what uncertain body of pupils who desire to follow up and acquire a liberal education for the manifest at advantages which accrue from its possession. Though uncertain in this new land this is a class which is undoubtedly growing, thanks to the liberal provision which the University is making for competition for degrees and other lonours, whetting the appetites of the diligent for distinction in the literary arena, and indirctly fostering a love of study for its own sake.

Numbers of candidates for the clerical profession, medicine, and the higher grade of engineers and teachers will come through our High Schools; no doubt all would, if they could, go straight on with their studie, but many are unable to find ways and means until it ta toolate to take advantage of anything like a High School course.

So far we have dealt win the field from which our High schools recruit, but we must take care and not fal into the error of supposing that because we recruit from a large area our position is scured and we are fulfilling our State duties It is not the number of" ayes" that caries the motion, but their number when compared with the "noes". To locate our secondary system we must see therefore who fields there are untouched by it and make ourselves familiar with their wants to find at whether from the very nature of things there must be a separation, or whether the barriers raised between professions and tides, so far as the page 4 necessity for a secondary education exists, are artificial or illogical.

If our analysis of the scope of the schools has been Anything like correct, it is manifest that the field which is shut off from our recruit ing area is very large. Ministers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers and commercial men, represent but a very small position of the hundreds of young men and young women who annually leave our schools to commence the battle of life. Note by the way that not one of those named can be ranked among the producers of the colony, and few of them even form the raw material. Where are the mechanics and tradesmen who form so numerous a body and play so important a part in the State? Tradesmen tell me that they must secure their apprentices about the age of fourteen so that their trades may be learnt at the age of twentyone. In answer lo my question whether a shorter time would not suit a well educated boy, it was told mo that the difference of period in the two cases was so small as not to be worth calculating, and that unless our present High Schools trained the eye in architectural beauty from the outside few lessons were to be learned by the trades from them. Do these men then not rewuire a higher education? Is all this section of the human family destined to follow up some trade or occupation which requires for its ordinary carrying on no better mental training than tthat required by, say, an engineer, a lawyer, or a commercial man? Surely not, Numbers of our leading public ami professional men never entered a secondary school and yet are well qualified for the posts they now hold. It therefore does not require a secondary education to equip thern for their particular walk in life, and if we are using our secondary schools to equip for professions where such a costly apparatus is unnecessary it seems strange that any particular section of the community should be singled out us the recipient of this favour, while others in a similar position have it withheld from them. No matter how strange it may appear we must know the reason why, otherwise we may be accused of living in a fool's paradise, and may one day be brought to our senses in a manner more abrupt than pleasing.

We have dealt with the field from an inclusive and exclusive point of view and we are now brought face to face with the social and political changes which affect it injuriously or otherwise so far as our secondary schools are concerned. Take some trade and let us look at it for a few moments to find out what actually is required in an individual tradesman to successfully compete against his fellowmen at the present day. We must remember that owing to our complete means of communication with other parts of the world our local men have to compete in all industries with producers in every part of the civilised world aud if we should lag behind to the extent indicated financially by the cost of transit, other countries wares are in the field and local men are elbowed out. To hold our owe, therefore our fellow labourers must be, if not in the front rank, at any rate fairly close up. As we want particularly to note the standard of education aimed at and attained by successful tradesmen, let us select upon one, say the printer, and put him to the test. He is taking away youths who might otherwise attend our High Schools, and we must see what he gives them in place of what he has taken them from.

Printing appears at first glance to be a trade with about as little in it as one could Well conceive. We see the compositor in the newspaper office placing one type alongside of another to form words, these words are plaeed in a press in lines and columns, machinery is set in motion, and a newspaper is produced. If, up to dale, any of my hearers have thought that this is the "be all and end all" of this important trade, discard such an idea at once; you might just as well refer to the humble but important work of the janitor as an index of the work done in our highest and best schools. It is not in the newspaper work that we find the printer thoroughly at home, but in the jobbing department, which includes pamphlets, [unclear: prioitiotlg] and maga zines, not to speak of the cards, testimonails, and other work of that class, which raise printing to an art. Our printer friend has many trade journals, including" The British Printer," the English representative, wherein are recorded for his benefit all improvements in the machinery of his business and things of interest to printers generally. Turn over its pages and you will be at once struck with the immense field our printer deals with. Multitudinous aS are the classes and kinds of type, their combinations to produce various effects are marvellous.

Regarding the various styles of type printing which have to be overlooked and carefully studied to produce proper effects, the American type holds the palm for clear cut and easily read letters; for elaborate Ornamental type Germany holds first place, but during the lost few years the great competition which has arisen between these two countries and England has resulted in the latter country developing a style of using these productions in advance of either of them. This has been a steady trade growth of recent years. When we come to the page 5 question of ornamentation we are brought face to face with a matter involving the highest class of artistic training—the ability to arrange type faces so that the combinations of light and shade will produce the most pleasing effects, set off the work and beautify the page. There must be some general design present in the mind of the printer, otherwise his work wilt ultimately go for naught. His customers vary from art teachers to I don't know what, and the work which fails to satisfy the moat accurate artcritic so far detracts from bis success as a printer. In order to completely master this question of ornamentation the effects of the various classes of paper and ink have to be known and carefully considered. This involves scientific knowledge of a very accurate description, because not only has the present effect to be studied but it a effect hereafter in the presence of light and shade. When, in addition, colours are used in ornamentation it is only nccessary to say that the labour and knowledge of the printer is quadrupled. We are examining the printer's trade to ascertain its educative effect, and even at the risk of taking up too much space must do full justice to every department of it. The class of material which our printer uses as a basis for work and the artistic ornamentation which has to be given his pages do not by any means exhaust the scope of the printer's work. The matter of pictorial illustration has of late assumed considerable dimensions and is fast becoming a necessary adjunct to a printer's business, being especially a feature of printing of the better class. This branch started with wood cuts, wood engravings and etchings, but those of late have had to give way to the more ad vanced process block produced by the aid of photography, thus adding another department to the many branches required by the modern printer. I will not touch on the knowledge of machinery, except to say that it must be of the most delicate and complete description, Look to-day into the rooms of a successful printer and you will find these various departments of his work, in every one of which he must be facile princeps, at any rate as a critic. His customers are drawn from all sorts and conditions of people. No merchant ever dealt with such a varied assortment as daily throng the printing office. To say that they include rich and poor, old and young, great and small, the learned and the unlearned, only conveys an idea of the men, the subjects are drawn from summer and winer, from the cradle and the crave, from every land, and from all time. What merchant with his many dealings in other lands, what lawyer with his clients and their little troubles, what doctor with his thousand and one diseases, has such a field for operation? And yet for these various single departments a secondary education is deemed a sine qua non, why not for this interesting and wholesale combination?

If you look carefutly it the requirements of some of our trades an exemplitied in the instance given, I am sure that many of you will agree with me in saying that the purely mental training that [unclear: i] to be got in the direction of the trades isin many cases quite equal to the standard of education aimed at by our secondary school, and yet those who follow them up are debarred by the age at which they commence end by other circumstances from attending our High schools. It follows from our reasoning that the number of trades which supplies such a mental training as I have indicated is continually increasing, and will in the near future assume gigantic proportions. That this will have some [unclear: every] material effect upon our secondary system will be manifest when we remember that we are supported by the State, and thereore more and more by the very section of the community which is daily feeling that inside its own trade education it is getting at no cost to the State, the benefits wlkh it has to pay largely for other classes bo acquire.

Having touched upon the changes which are going on in the field at present practically outside our sphire, let us look at what is going on in tie professions which we have classed as peculiarly within our province.

With regard to the professions the tendency of the present day appears to be to abolish or cut down preliminary examinations—to make the professions open to Law, who may desire to practice them. Law, which has had a checked career in this respect has Little now iu the way of a bar to its entrance. The aboltion of Articles took away the only assurance of a systematic training and the annual attacks on the profession in Parliament show that the Law and even the General Knowledge examination is severely menaced. Qnce that goes the last support of a fixed educational standard has naught to justify its name and the profession will be free. I do not myself think the result of such a course will be at all startling and if I personally should oppose it it is certainly not on any grounds which I could at the present time justify. At the same time that we detect this tendency to do away with entrance exami nations to some of our professions we note that our Civil Service, which from the peculiar configuration of our colony must page 6 loom largely in the immediate future, has a secure and well defined entrance examination, and though it does not to any great extent demand High School work the candidatess for positions will find themselves all the more secure with a good secondary education. Further, the matriculation (a secondary standard examination) is now a moat important one to pass, and paves the way for entrance to many positions I notice also in England there is a tendency to harden up the medical profession, but with that single exception I think we may be safe in saying that the comparative educational status of the professions is lowering and that of the trades increasing. A result of this nature cannot but be detrimental to our High Schools as it enables young men to make a start without secondary school equipment, and once having made a start, goodbye to looking back, The hope of the schools in this direction comes from the knowledge that as we grow in numbers more questions will arise which call for work of the best trained mental character, and our secondary schools cannot be overlooked in meeting this demand.

We stated in an earlier portion of the paper that there were often indignant complaints of the High School being shame fully treated by the community. Might it not be the case that we are simply looking at the result which I have just now pointed out, and have been all along unable to recognise the why and the wherefore? There is no doubt that we have felt something wrong and have been and are making great efforts to rectify it by developing the schools along popular lines, Long since, under the name of a commercial education, departures were taken from the routine study of Latin and Greek and students' minds were directed to modern languages, science, and book-keeping, as forming an education complete in itself. At the time of the classical mania it no doubt had much to recommend it. It was the food on which heroes were bred, being the study which had been carried out to the greatest extent, and therefore produced the most perfect mental training then known. All that, however, is altered now. The enormous discoveries of recent science and the application of mathematics to the solution of problems beyond the range of actual experiment at once produced a rival to the old classical course. No rival was ever more warmly welcomed or more bitterly opposed, Culture bad, under the old dispensation, been restricted to the classical minds, now the mathematical and science men got an innings, and as might be expected, after being out in the cold so long, made things lively. Henceforth the secondary schools, which all along professed only to give mental training, were compelled to see in the teaching of science the same mental training they had always professed, and they took kindly to the change. They took kindly to the change in the sense that they recognised that it was useless to oppose the growth of modern thought, and tne theory of development of science furnishing a perfect mental culture in itself, appeared to the older school to place them in the position of not conceding their principles. Had the reason been stated to be 'popular demand' it would have been indignantly rejected.

The same element which resitted the intraduction of science and commercial studies now restate the modern innovations, and again we brine; up our time honoured fiction, not that athletics are now developed such a pitch that they are a mental training in themselves, but that a healthy body fosters a healthy mind, and that to produce the highest mental culture we must first fit the body For its reception. Under this theory athletics and subjects of a practical nature can be gradually introduced without offence, This is the stage we have now arrived at in New Zealand. Our High Schools cultivate all the outdoor sports—football, cricket rifle shortting, swimming, and others—and in regard to the tendency of our schools to combine scientific knowledge with accurate training of the hand and eye the best instance I have come across is where, in science classes, the pupils arc compelled to construct their own apparatus. For the girls we have calisthenics, tennis, needlework! cookery, and even dancing is not unknown in the secondary schools of the colony.

Just pausing to review what I have enumerated—why cannot we frankly [unclear: admit] that those things are adopted simply to supply the popular demand? Though great numbers of the subjects have a mental culture aspect, that is not our reason for adopting them, it is simply to keep pace with the times. The fact that they have an important bearing on mental training arises purely from the well known law that the struggle for existence always produces a healthy offspring and a development along proper lines. In this case the proper lines evolve mental culture of the highest order, which goes to show that the old theory of mental culture being the great object to be attained is built on a sure foundation. The error into which we in modern days have fallen is to confound the end (mental culture), with the means (study of classics), for attaining that end, and to imagine that in no other way can that end be attained. As long, however, as we wait patiently until page 7 we are driven to a position to ensure our existence our position cannot be very secure. Secondary education, from its importance, should direct the nation's growth, should guide the horses instead of being dragged from the tail board. It is true that machines may be directed from the stem or stern, but in the latter case there is some thing grim in the suggestion that they are all at sea. So far then the history of secondary education shows that when brought face to face with the demand for a change we have changed and to a certain extent met the demand: we were in fact compelled to do so.

Our position simply stated then is this. The area from which we draw ia restricted, and unfortunately the growth of the day inside that area does not call for a correspondingly increased demand for secondary work. Outside this area the education of the trades is advancing with rapid strides, and from a mental point of view—apart altogether from the practical training—is becoming a very considerable rival to our present secondary education. The schools in the past have had to give way to popular demand, and will have to do so again. Finally, all classes of the State support the schools and will have a say in their government. What becomes of our outlook now? Refuse to listen to popular demand: educational death. Simply to meet popular demand as a last resort also means an ignominious end.

In the enormous legislative activity which characterises the world of to-day, especially along the lines of popular control of the various institutions of the State, "Thou shall not" appears to be the keynote of treatment of everything obnoxious. All that is injurious or unnecessary or deemed to be such by the State, it prohibits, it abolishes. Get outside popular sympathy and what will be the fate even of our High Schools? Like Bacon's head of brass which in vain gave the warning "Time is," "Time was," "Time is past," e' er it shattered into fragments, the schools may appeal to us, only to be misunderstood, only to be neglected. We can understand the agony of the Friar when he saw his seven years' labour wrecked at his feet, and turning to the custodian, says:—

’Tis past, indeed, Ah, villain! time is past:
My life, my fame, my glory, all are past—Bacon,
The turrets of thy hope are roin'd down,
Thy seven years' study lieth in the dust:
Thy Brazen Head lies broken through a slave,
That watch'd, and would not when the head did will.

Listen to his answer [unclear: to] the reply that the head only said "Time's," and Let us profit by listening:—

Villain, if thou [unclear: hadest] called to Bacon [unclear: the,]
If thou had'st [unclear: wath'd] and wak'd the sleepy friar,
The Brazen Head had utter'd aphorisms,
And England had been circled round with brass.

Let the schools take heir proper position in the State and lead on the people to something higher and better from an educational standpoint, and what is Likely to be their course of conduct? The State is built up in all its most important elements by direct representation, and even in our second Legislative Chamber with the recent limitation of tenure of office we see an approach to this form of selection. At the present time our High School Boards appear to avoid direct popular representation as they would a deadly enemy, and the result is a lack of interest on the part of the public which in many cases produces a most pernicious result. In regard to this question of direct popular control it is more a change which will have to be brought about to enable us to develop with the State than an indication of what the schools will do. Even now I believe the absence of popular representation is a grave defect.

Drawing its revenue from the State and inside the State equality of voting power existing, the only thing which [unclear: makes] fees charged in the secondary schools while the primary are free is the fact that the mass of the people have taken little interest in our secondary schools. Once all possess an equal interest the charge goes upon the State as it matter of course. An educated people growing up around will see as clearly as it can be seen that a secondary course possesses great advantages in the direction of certain professions. The poorest worker desires these advantages for his boy just as eagerly as the richest idler in the land. There is only one way in which all can start fair—the schools must be free. Once you hear the clamour for high fees know that the end is near. I anticipate no such result but I can easily conceive circumstances In connection with the government of our schools and their exelusiveness which would raise a demand for their abolition. The greatest enemies our system has to fear at the present time are those who decline to take advantage of the schools on grounds of want of selectness. As long as this class is page 8 correctly gauged no harm can arise as happily its numbers are small.

We pointed out that our secondary schools only met the case of a small proportion of the community. Of course it goes without saying that their sphere of usefulness is largely extended when made free, but don't mistake my meaning, they are free to a greater number of individuals but the area of the trades which was previously shut out is not lessened one whit. The reason for not meeting the case of the trades was a reason not grounded at all on finance but related to age and mechanical tiaining. Free education, therefore, only reduces the incompleteness of the system to a minimum, it is still existing for the benefit of only a small portion of the community while the remainder is without any corresponding assistance. To compensate for this deficiency in the balance something must be devised in the way of free education for the remainder and that no doubt will take the form of assistance given to agricultural and technical schools thus making provision for the town and country. Our future secondary system after being made free must be made to apply equally to the various classes of the community. The same system which lays the groundwork for the architect and surveyor may lay the groundwork for the printer and the engineer; cannot see how a logical distinction can be established between the education of these two classes. Our secondary systtm at the present time is only a secondary system so long as the trades require nothing beyond primaly work, once they reach a higher standard the feature of our system is the absence of system, it is one sided, will be recognised to be such and will be amended. Once it is agreed that our secondary system should embrace all classes, the question arises whether the additional work will be covered by institutions running side by side with our present High Schools, or whether all will merge and run as one institution. In regard to the capacity of one institution to direct so wide an area, I would refer to the Universities, where, under the one control, practically in the same building, even in the same lecture-rooms are taught the minister, the doctor, the lawyer, the mining mechanical and civil engineer, and the teacher; to the same class also flock chemists, clerks, tradesmen of all classes, farmers, electricians and a host of others, Surely this is not a more varied assembly than would be included within the compass of the secondary system I have indicated?

I have already exceeded the time allowed me for a paper, and cannot now go inio detail, but the real point of interest commences here; and I will indicate the outstanding pointa of a system which could be made universal.

(1.) Tbe withdrawal of any restriction on the teaching of secondary work in the primary schools.

This is a matter of which I never could understand the philosophy, it seems to me to be Protection in its worst at from and a free hand should be given to all teachers to do what they like after the syllabus is satisfied.

(2) Supplementing the staff of the larger schools to enable them to be put on a footing similar to District High Schools.

At present the time lost in changing from the one system to the other is very great and must throw pupils back for many months. Under the plan I indicate there is nothing to binder extra work being taken at the fifth standard.

(3) The abolition of all primsry work from the High Schools.

Under this scheme the students who would be coming up would have computed their primary work and have made a start in secondary work. In regard to those who dislike to send their children to a primary school I would show them no consideration.

(4) No fixed course in the High School but all classes optional.

We have been developing towards this for many years in High Schools and Universities. I would simply carry it out to its logical conclusion and give the same option that the Universities do.

(5) Tbe introduction of the college system of classes to enable pupils of all kinds and engaged in all occupations to attend the schools.

I have indicated the different classes of men who meet in the one class in our colonial colleges, why cannot the same plan work in our secondary schools? My hearers must remember that this schems only brings together the eager [unclear: land], no en couragement is given the others, their continuance at school is a State loss be they rich or poor and we act accordingly.

We have now gone as far as can be expected Jn the short compass of one paper. I had hoped to be able to develop more elaborately, and indicate more clearly the conduct of an institution on the lines I last stated, but time will not permit, it may be said that the only portion of the paper dealing with the subject is the last and that has not been developed. There is some truth in this but remember where we are. The divine right of kings and kindred theories have long since been exploded and you cannot now expect to hear that one section of the community has rights which another has not. A careful knowledge of our position page 9 is of the utmost importance and must be kept steadily in mind in every criticism. We have endeavoured to examine what extent of ground the secondary schools cover and what they do not, and what were the future prospects of each. We saw the incompleteness of a system which aided only a small portion of the community and left the remainder out in the cold at Ihe same time that it drew money for its support from all. We saw the power of this neglected portion. We saw that when once their attention was directed to the position the inequality would force itself upon them. We considered how we should anticipate this result in developing the schools. We saw that the very nature of things limited our development and even free educaton only limited and did not remove the objection. Knowing that the great gap must be filled we look at the question of indepedent institutions under the one system, or the alternative extension of our present one-sled scheme to cover all and bring our eccondry system into a proper relation with every epanment in the State.

The width of the field cannot be conceived until it is entered pon, but so far as I am aware the subject put forward in this paper for your coasideration has never before been placed before an aucence. The writer hopes to derive profit an instruction from the criticism which may be evoked and places his views into you hands at this time with that object.

vignette

Southland Times Co.'s Print, Invercargll.