Adams. — On School-teaching. 455 



domestic sounds, the fields of corn, the distant undulating 

 country with its trees, might well have been mistaken for our 

 fatherland ; nor was it the triumphant feeling at seeing what 

 Englishmen could effect, but rather the high hopes thus in- 

 spired for the future progress of this fine Island." 



And these high hopes are certain to be realised— all that 

 Darwin found sombre and gloomy have during the past sixty 

 years nearly vanished. The dense forests have been removed, 

 and corn-fields, pasture-lands, and orchards have taken their 

 place. Large districts, like the Canterbury Plains, that 

 afforded no food for the natives, have now become the gran- 

 aries not only of New Zealand but of England. The bare 

 shingle-slopes that the natives seldom approached now feed 

 thousands and thousands of sheep. Metals and minerals 

 hidden deep in the earth are being worked out and employed 

 in the service of man. Every harbour and river-mouth has 

 its rising town, well drained, well built, with public parks and 

 public buildings, while the country in the neighbourhood of 

 the town is but a succession of lovely gardens. It is the 

 knowledge of science, that increases more and more, which 

 acts like an enchanter's wand, and has changed this country, 

 gloomy and unattractive even to the eye of Darwin, into the 

 lovely country that visitors and residents alike agree in calling 

 it. It is to our knowledge of the laws of nature that we look 

 for aid in all troubles, bodily or mental, or municipal or 

 national. We had depression, and depression disappeared, not 

 through prayers in the churches, nor through the eloquence 

 of our representatives, nor through the vigorous policy of the 

 Governmeiit, but from the fact that scientific men have shown 

 us how to produce great cold in a chamber, and in this way 

 beef and mutton can be carried fresh and good to the European 

 markets. 



Now, it was pointed out above that sixty years ago the 

 school-teaching was not in harmony with the duties of life. 

 Young people while at school, with the exception of learning 

 to read and write and cipher, were trained to have their judg- 

 ment controlled entirely by that of others ; whereas the pro- 

 ducers, from the farm-hand to the F.E.S., must depend on his 

 own judgment azid on his knowledge of the laws of nature. 



What steps, then, we may well ask, have we taken so that 

 the teaching in our schools shall be a fit preparation for the 

 requirements of later life ? 



In answer to this question, it may be as well to show 

 what we do with the very pick of our boys and girls. In the 

 month of December a bell is rung, to speak metaphorically, 

 that calls to all to "come up and be examined." This is 

 eagerly responded to by boys and girls of all ages and from all 

 kinds of schools, from the dame school to the university college. 



