50 TRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS SECTION D. 



on the one hand, the pupil-teacher system and, on the other, 

 an untrammelled high school education with superimposed 

 Normal College training. Each province issues its own teachers' 

 certificates, and they certainly do not connote the same thing. 

 A teacher passing from the service oT one provincial education 

 department to that of another, finds that his professional pass- 

 port does not open all doors. Again, while the provincial 

 authorities are busy with the courses for the Third and Second 

 Class Certificates, the Union Department of Education deals 

 with the course for the certificate of the first class ; and there 

 is at the moment no relation of any kind between the certificates 

 issued by the Province and the certificate issued by the Union. 

 Finally, the relation of the Normal Colleges to the faculties of 

 pedagogy in the University Colleges in the business of training 

 teachers, should be, but is not, clearly set out. As regards 

 conditions of service, there are wide divergencies. In some 

 instances teachers are officers of the Provincial Education 

 Department ; in others they are the officers of School Boards. 

 Salaries differ widely. Service in one Province does not count 

 as service for another Province. Retiring allowances are varied. 

 All these reasons support the policy of nutting matter? concern- 

 ing the teaching staff' under the control of the central authority. 



Technical education, with all its importance and potentiali- 

 ties, is in the same unsatisfactory condition as regards control. 

 The Union Department of Education has appointed a National 

 Board, and this Board has adopted a scheme along the lines of 

 which technical education might proceed. But the Board is 

 advisory, and its scheme may remain in the air ; for the technical 

 schools (as distinct from technical colleges) dealing with trades 

 and industries, commerce, and domestic science, are under the 

 l^rovincial authority and are developing independently. Their 

 relation to the Board's scheme is entirely accidental and inarti- 

 culate. 



All these arguments seem to me to lead to the conclusion 

 that the Union Parliament should take over responsibility for 

 the control of education so far as general principles and policy 

 are concerned. I will now indicate the general lines which a 

 division of function between the central and local authorities 

 might follow. There is a presupposition which must be 

 asserted with all possible emphasis. The assumption of a 

 measure of control by the central authority must mean, of course, 

 the introduction of a certain degree of uniformity. The last 

 thing desirable, however, is uniformity of content, uniformity 

 in the nature of the education given. One hears vague talk of 

 unification of education, of developing a single national system, 

 and the like. Reformers on these lines should be heard with 

 caution. So long as they are referring to uniformity of financial 

 relations, of administrative machinery, of final aim and ideal, 

 all is well. If, however, they have any notion of fitting all 

 pupils to the same groove, without regard to differences of 



