242 president's address— section j. 



must not have too many of them, and they must have them under 

 their care for a sufficient length of time. Satisfactory knowledge 

 of the pupils is impossible under the pernicious plan which at 

 present holds in some parts of Australia, that of transferring the 

 teacheir to a new class or a new school at intervals of a year or 

 less. A young teacher, at all events, should be allowed tO' remain 

 in the same school long enough to see some of the fruits of his 

 teaching. If this is not done, the teacher is deprived of one 

 strong incentive to the growth of professional interest. And these 

 frequent shifts appear to do^ injury to' the pupil. But it is de- 

 sirable that carefvil measurements should be made of the scholastic 

 achievements of initially equal groups, but under the care of one 

 teacher for varying periods. The whole question indeed of the 

 distribution of teaching power would well repay careful study. 

 In the primary schools at present we often have in extreme form 

 one kind of specialism where the teacher devotes himself year 

 after year to the same narrow range of school work ; in the high 

 schools on the other hand we find a very different form of 

 specialism practised, where the teacher devotes himself to the same 

 subject or branch of a svibject. 



The study of school organization and administration has recently 

 been receiving great attention in the United States of America. 

 The stimulus has been in part public dissatisfaction with the sup- 

 posed condition of the schools. The school surveys which have 

 been in consequence undertaken have in some cases shown the dis- 

 satisfaction to be jii stifled, in other cases to^ be groundless. The 

 published material now becoming available will do much to stimu- 

 late thei growth- of the science of school administration and to 

 improve its practice, particularly the methods of school inspection. 



The surveys of thei school systems of Cleveland, San FranciscO', 

 and Salt Lake City may be mentioned, and that of the Gary 

 Schools, conducted by the General Education Board. These, and 

 ethers of similar character, are doing for American education 

 what was done by Dr. Sadler many years ago for English 

 secondarv education. Surveys on similar lines might with ad- 

 \antage be undertaken in Australia, and might help to dispel the 

 common ministerial myth about the superiority of Australian 

 schools to those abroad. The annual reports published by the 

 State Departments of Education give part, but by no means all, 

 of the information about our schools M'hich it would be desirable 

 to have. Even for the information they give they are less useful 

 than they might be, since the data are often incomparable because 

 compiled in different ways. Perhaps I may here repeat a sug- 

 gestion which I made some years ago for the establishment of a 

 Federal Bureau of Education on tha lines of the American Bureau 

 at Washington, and of the office of Special Inquiries in London. 



