Inspectors Officers of the Central Department,

instead of, as now, officers of the local boards. The rejection of this proposal seems to me a matter much to be regretted. In the first place, its adoption is the only way by which uniformity in the interpretation of the standards can be secured. When inspectors are changed about from district to district at short intervals of time a common ideal of the attainments to be expected from school children will soon grow up of itself. Everybody sees that, and desires, in consequence, that the supervising officers may be made itinerant. It does not seem equally well recognised, however, although it ought to be, that the transference desired will never be effected by local bodies, each independent of all the ethers. As a general rule a local board has more confidence in the officers it is acquainted with than in those of whom it knows little, and whenever a board floes show a wish for a change a neighboring board will be likely to imagine it would be no gainer by cooperating. Then, again, inspectors' salaries vary greatly in the different education districts, and this of itself would probably prove an insurmountable barrier to transference by negotiation. Moreover, even inspectors have their rights, and a man who has been engaged for work in a particular district would probably feel himself aggrieved when told he had been transferred by his employers like goods or chattels somewhere else. He might be inclined to think that the days of American slavery were being revived. Anyway, it is plain enough that the inertia of rest will be too great to be overcome by any force less potent than the General Government. It is easy to show, however, that much good besides uniformity of requirements would follow the change proposed; and, were this not so, it would hardly be worth while to make so radical an alteration in present arrangements. For instance, boards would be able to form a much more certain estimate of the efficiency or otherwise of any particular teacher after several inspectors had reported upon him than they can now; and, on the other hand, teachers would feel themselves less at the mercy of one man than they do at present. All this is important, but by tar the greatest benefit from the change proposed has yet to be mentioned. It would be seen, not at examination, but at inspection. Each school would obtain hints in turn from every inspector in the colony, and so the best methods of each district would become the common property of all. Indeed, it should be remembered that inspectors learn as well as teach—that is, if they are the men they ought to be—and that a man who has seen every school in the colony and the methods adopted in it will necessarily be a wiser man, and one whose counsel will be worth more to any teacher, than an officer who sees nothing from year's end to year's end except what he himself originates, or, at best, what a small number of teachers have introduced.