780 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 
It seems to me that the excellence of the’ German educa- 
tional system, elementary and secondary, is based upon two 
essential qualities :— _ 
(1) The great value set by the Germans, since the Napo- 
leonic wars, upon a really sound literary education, and the 
strenuous efforts made by the German nation since its birth 
to secure uniformity and thoroughness of teaching through- 
out the Empire. . 
(2) The intense belief that exists among them in the 
science of education; the profound contempt they feel for 
mere empiricists, who stumble on complacently, delighting 
in their discoveries in the art of teaching ; discoveries which 
only appear to them as new because of their own ignorance, 
and overlooking their defects and shortcomings because 
they have no standard with which to compare themselves. 
The intense belief of the Germans in the need for a sound 
scientific theory to aid and to correct personal experience 
leads them to insist on the training of every teacher in the 
science and art of education. Their greatest philosophers 
have not hesitated to devote much time and thought to 
methods of teaching, and their most gifted teachers are all 
bound to go through a regular course of training for their 
profession so severe and so thorough that all English 
untrained teachers, however great their practical experience, 
appear to them in the light of presumptuous amateurs. 
The question of the adequate training of teachers, which 
has lately been a subject of much controversy in Sydney, 
is one of world-wide interest. It is a branch of technical 
education which is all-important, for it affects not one 
portion of the community only, not one branch of its trade, 
but the whole nation. It affects not only the intellectual, 
but the moral and physical well-being of a whole people ; 
and it seems to me extraordinarily short-sighted to spend 
lavish sums on the foundation of technical schools for any 
or all of the crafts, while the great majority of teachers 
are exercising their craft without any adequate training at 
all; while, from their ignorance of physiology, they are 
lowering the standard of physical health, from their ignor- 
ance of psychology they are deadening the minds, and from 
their ignorance of ethical principles they are lowering the 
moral tone of their pupils. 
“There is no more pathetic sight in creation,’ says 
Edward Thring, “than a slow, good boy, laboriously knead- 
ing himself into dulness just because he is good”; and it is 
‘a sight that we are often called upon to witness in our 
present system, where the method of teaching, if it deserves 
the name of method, is not founded upon any principle 
