cii- in placing yards of iTuiiitelligible 

 figures on a slat© and then rubbing them 

 off again. He reduced marvellous frac- 

 tions to uncommon de^nominatore, and 

 spent mucli time in calculating when the 

 hands of a clock would be together, while 

 inwardly praying that the said liands 

 would hurry on a little faster. While 

 performing trar.smutatio'as on thoiisands 

 of pounds changed from one stock to 

 another, the only objective reality he was 

 ever likely to come in contact with was 

 the question of the number of marbles 

 he oould buy for a penny. In other 

 words his faculty of seeing and his 

 faculty of interpreting wez-e never exer- 

 cised, but even subjected to positive 

 check, by the school curriculum. The 

 subjects under the new order that will 

 chiuge all this are geography and nature 

 study. "Geography!" you exclaim. 

 Visions of names, of heights of moun- 

 tains and lengths of rivers, of capes 

 and bays, swarm in the bewildered 

 brains! How we agonised to learn 

 the names of all these, to the accompani- 

 ment of a birch-rod! But now we take 

 our pupils to the top of Geography Hill, 

 which may be a spot in their own play- 

 ground, and from that vantage point we 

 commence our survey of this fair earth. 

 Eeal rivers and mountains are substi- 

 t-nted for marks on tattered wall-maps; 

 where it is not possible to came in con- 

 tact with actualities, pictures and lantern 

 views are shown; models m clay or plas- 

 ticine are made in the presence O'f the 

 children and by the children. Geography 

 and Nature study combined and co- 

 ordinated will prove in the future the 

 means of developing the observational 

 powers to an appreciable degree. Red- 

 wav puts this aspect very tersely when 

 he says:— "The reading method might 

 fi' a young man to be a private secre- 

 ti^iry ; the discovery method fits him to 

 h} the employer of private secretaries. 

 Anything that gives me self-power to 

 discover and acquire knowledge is good; 

 anything that gives the teacher self- 

 knowledge in the place of a reading ac- 

 quaintance is equally good. There is a 

 wonderful strength that comes from the 

 knowledge of contact; it is as solid gold 

 compared with paper tinsel..' 



Another subject that has recently been 

 introduced into the primary schools to 

 meet the needs of child activities is hand- 

 work. Modelling in plastic substances 

 and in cardboard, brushwork drawing, 

 carton-work, and woodwork, are all splen- 

 did aids in directing the energies of chil- 

 dien towards self-realisation of all the 

 bodily and mental powers. Hand, eye, 

 and brain are trained to operate in one 

 self-acting unity. Teachers find that the 

 two hours every week devoted to one or 

 other of these forms of handwork are 

 really two hours gained in buoyancy and 

 mental reaction when the time comes 



round for the bcok-lessons again. Then, 

 what a splendid training m accuracy and 

 care the woodwork exercises are ! When 

 a boy tries to fit his lap-joint or his dove- 

 tail he finds that ''near enough" is a 

 bad maxim to work upon. "We don't 

 send our girls to school to learn cooking, '' 

 you say. No, perhaps not; but you would 

 like them to be clean and orderly, and 

 trained in all those habits that tend to 

 make home sweet, and life enjoyable. 

 There is another aspect of these innova- 

 tions, an aspect that only teachers will 

 notice. In school-life, sport often helps 

 a dull boy to retain his self-respect 

 among his companions. So with hand- 

 work. The boy at the fool of the class 

 may be easily first at the bench. To 

 the boy, one first is as good as another. 

 In the past, effort has been directed too 

 much to the training of head-workers 

 only; handwork is making school-life 

 endurable to those who can never be 

 head-workers. Further, if a boy is to be 

 a doctor or a lawyer, does he not require 

 a sound guidance in careful accuracy? 

 Surely, as much as, if not more than, the 

 mechanic needs. The training in school- 

 life should be general and not special; 

 in growing children we must guard 

 against over-specialisation, for it may 

 mean iuterfereuce with the natural 

 order of development. Teachers find 

 that handwork is resulting in habits of 

 inquiry on the part of their pupils, and 

 thus tends bo make school-life less hard, 

 less monotonous, and less a matter of 

 antagonism. Such work in our primary 

 schools will lead to a much higher level 

 of national intelligence, and we know 

 that a high average intelligence is the 

 only safeguard of a democracy. 



Time will permit only a passing refer- 

 ence to the efforts made to improve the 

 surroundings of the pupils. School 

 hygiene has come to stay; it demands 

 close attention to all matters of health. 

 Lighting, ventilation, seating accommo- 

 dation, eye and ear-testing, examination 

 of teeth come under its searching eye. 

 Nor can we deal now with aesthetic con- 

 siderations — the beautifying of the walls 

 with works of art, the orderly arrange- 

 ment of flower plots to fill the unused 

 parts of the playground. 



Only (he fringe of this subject has 

 been touched upon. Enough has been 

 said to indicute that a great and momen- 

 tous movement is at work all over the 

 thinking world. Sad will be the fate 

 of the State that does anything to crip- 

 ple vhe advance of education in its 

 midst. It must drop to the rear in the 

 march of the nations. The best asset 

 any country can possess is a thoughtful, 

 obserAant, active, strong people. There 

 are gold mines of wealth in our public 

 schools, knew we but how to work them. 



