ADiVMS. — On School-teaching. 459 



head-teacher's salary fluctuates with wet days, measles, 

 whooping-cough, and other visitations, for which he is pro- 

 perly held responsible." 



Of course the number of teachers varies with the attend- 

 ance, but more than half the number are at a salary of from 

 £20 to £30 per annum. It is certainly very economical to 

 have a standard of forty or fifty pupils taught for 7s. 6d. a 

 week ; but where do the discipline and education come in ? 



There is a certain silence and order preserved, or dismissal 

 results ; but what becomes of the mental discipline, which is 

 the great gift a teacher can impart? — that power, I mean, of 

 devoting the entire attention to the subject of study, from 

 which arise order and silence. One thing, however, is certain: 

 that the result of having this work cheaply done is that the 

 pupils who pass the Sixth Standard are now, so far as my 

 experience goes, very inferior in attainments to what they 

 were three years ago. I mean, of course, in those subjects 

 that would fit them to be office-boys and shop-apprentices, for 

 the system seems to have no other object in view. The breach 

 is yearly becoming wider between the school and the realities 

 of life. Our education, whether in higher or lower schools, is 

 subjective to an extreme degree — just of the kind to produce 

 the discontents and riot that characterized the latter days of 

 the Eoman Eepublic, when the belief in words was equally 

 strong. This devotion to the study of mere words appears, 

 like the serpents in the Laocoon group, to poison individuality 

 and to crush objectivity out of existence. 



I mentioned what the Auckland Inspectors said of the 

 teaching of science ; but all the Inspectors throughout New 

 Zealand have the same report. The Inspectors for Wanganui 

 are especially outspoken. They say, "To call the matter 

 taught in the schools science is a misuse and degradation of 

 the term." 



We must therefore honestly confess that, so far as public 

 education is concerned, the instruction in science has scarcely 

 begun, and that no regular plan has been so far adopted with 

 the desirable object of having the instruction in school in har- 

 mony with the requirements of actual life. 



There is, however, in my opinion, a simple remedy in our 

 hands not requiring any great change in the present system, 

 and little, if any, additional expense. In fact, there need be 

 no change in the present instruction until the children have 

 passed the Fourth Standard. After this the pupils, instead 

 of continuing to attend the same school, would go to a central 

 school, where the education would be for the most part 

 scientific. 



Say that there are five schools, with a total attendance of 

 two thousand. These would supply an average attendance of 



