president's address — SECTION J. 717 



far-reaching reform are distinctly a movement in the right direction. 

 The extension of secondary education to all classes of the com- 

 munity will be hailed with satisfaction by us all ; and it is to be 

 hoped that in the course of our discussions some light may be 

 thrown upon the best method for accomplishing so desirable an 

 end without injustice to those who have hitherto been doing the 

 greater part of this work and have embarked in it their capital 

 both of monev and ofenergv. I trust also that some word of protest 

 will go forth from this meeting against the growing tyranny of the 

 examination system, which is fast reducing our secondary schools 

 to mere cramming-shops and making all originality in teaching 

 too risky to be attempted. It is the parents, not the teachers, 

 who are responsible for the present state of affairs ; so long as they 

 persist in looking upon a pass at matriculation or some other 

 examination as the chief test of their children's educational progress, 

 and in judging schools by the number of passes and honours they 

 secure, so long teachers, who unfortunately have their living to 

 make, must conform to the present craze for results and subordinate 

 their curricula to the requirements of the Examination Boards. 

 I could wish also that some wise counsels may be given as to the 

 best way of making the Bible available as a subject of real study 

 in our State schools without offence to the susceptibilities or con- 

 victions of any class of our fellow-citizens. The value of the Bible 

 as an instrument of education no one will question ; but the 

 difficulties in the way are more serious than some of the advocates 

 of the Bible in State schools seem to recognise. To introduce into 

 any school a subject that is not to be scientifically taught is a 

 fatal mistake ; if the Bible is to be introduced at all it must be as 

 a subject of study as real and as scientifically directed as every 

 other. Our brightest hope lies in the saner views of the Bible and 

 its literature which are gradually emerging from the processes of 

 the so-called higher criticism, and are vindicating for that literature 

 its human ?.nd progressive character. 



Upon these and many other live questions I trust that this 

 assembly of teachers and thinkers will be able to give to the com- 

 munity suggestions of real value and importance ; for my own part 

 I wish to put in a plea for the recognition of music as a subject of 

 study and an instrument of education second to none in the curri- 

 culum of our schools. 



It will be as weU to state at the outset that when I speak of 

 music I am not thinking of piano-playing, which ought not to be 

 taught at all, except to those children who have special musical 

 ability ; but I mean first of all, such training in ear and voice as 

 shall give every child the power to sing in tune and in a pleasant 

 and properly produced tone ; and then such knowledge of musical 

 notation that the child shall be able to read and sing at sight any 

 ordinary' vocal composition, and to follow the score of any instru- 

 mental work that he may hear played. To this should be added 

 later the general rules of harmony and exercises in the harmonisation 

 of melodies and the composition of simple four-part songs. In 



