A new ei-a is dawning foi- tlie (<>.aoliei-, 

 uan era of strenuous endeavour and tardy 

 recognition. He dreams od' work \inder 

 tjelter conditions, both lor hinisclf and 

 his pupils. He hopes for schools that 

 will meet all hygienic requirements; 

 buildings itiui jjlaygrounds and furniture 

 all miiListcring to that quiet, lestful. 

 .«es(hetic ai'mosphere thai should porvade 

 all his work. For him the gates of art 

 h^ve opened a little way to give a vision 

 <►£ the perfection that recedes for ever 

 and for ever as he advances — a perfection 

 to which he aspiies, but which he never 

 attains. JS'evertheless, he hopes to be 

 numbered amongst die "high men" of 

 Browning's lines - 



'•That low man seeks a little thing to do. 



Sees it and does it: 

 That high man, with a great thing to 

 pui-sue, 



Dies ere he knows it." 



Mr. Clemes said that, as the oldest 

 ■teacher present, he would like to say a 

 few words on the veiy able paper read 

 by Mr Johnson. He remembered the sys- 

 tem of primary education in England 50 

 years ago, referred to by the lecturer, 

 having been in a private school at the 

 time. They learned a great deal more 

 in pi'ivate schools then than was taught 

 in any of the State-schools. Lowe's prin- 

 ciple of payment by result made scarcely 

 any difference to the private school teach- 

 ing, but wholly to the Board-schools, 

 which took the place of the National and 

 British schools, the former conducted by 

 ihe Church of England, while the latter 

 were undenominational. Huxley's work 

 ■dealt mainly with secondary schools. He 

 was in Switzerland when the techni- 

 -cal schools, borrowed from thenoe, 

 -were introduced into England. These 

 were used by the manufacturers 

 as a means of improving the 

 technical skill of tlieir work-people, which 

 was clean against the idea of all true 

 educationists, who desired to train, not 

 plumbers and carpenters, but the science 

 that underlay the art that was to be 

 learned m the workshop. Referring to 

 America, the speaker said that the prim- 

 ary school teacliei-s there, especially in 

 the west, were nearly all young women. 

 And a great deal of the higher education 

 in America was also in the hands of wo- 

 men. He hoped that the training-school 

 was not going to enter into competition 

 with the secondary schools. The time 

 had not come to try and cripple the 

 secondary schoolmasters. (Applause.) 



Dr. Delany said the drift of Mr. John- 

 son's paper was quite in harmony with 

 what he desired for the education'of the 

 children — that the teachers should be 

 specially trained, and that they should 

 ■enter into the attitude of the child. Tlie 

 formation of character, which was one cf 

 the niani elements of the new education. 



couid not be successfully carried out on 

 basis so unstable aw the emotions, butmiv*'- 

 be grounded on the conscience, an all- 

 important element which was not attend- 

 ed to by the Gi-eeks. Mr. Johnson had 

 made the happy remaik that the school 

 should follow the home. An eminent 

 Frenchman had said that the school could 

 give instruction, but was powerless to 

 give education, which could only be ob- 

 tained in the home. If that were true, 

 as he was inclined to believe it was, it 

 was important that the school teacher 

 sh9uld occupy the place of parent to the 

 child, and thus the continuitv between 

 the home and the school life of the 

 child should not be broken. (Applause.) 



Mr. R. Smith, headmaster of the Bat- 

 tery Point State-school, said that his at- 

 tention had first been called to th,e newer 

 developments in education seven or eight 

 .years ago by letters from America, placed 

 in his hands by the late Sir Edward Brad- 

 don, asking children here to correspond 

 with children in America on natural his- 

 tory and other subjects. A correspon- 

 dence thereupon ensued -between the chil- 

 dren here and there, which had been of 

 great advantage to both sides, and had 

 been the means of dispelling a great deal 

 of ignorance about the different countries 

 between which the correspondence nas 

 conducted. He gave a striking illustra- 

 tion to show the valu© of a suggestion ly 

 Mr. Johnson to teach different subjects — 

 mental and manual, for instance — so as 

 to reach all sorts of minds. One of the 

 boys attending his school had been com- 

 pletely given up by the teachers as utter- 

 ly hopeless and incapable till the banC 

 was introduced, when he was the very 

 first to attain proficiency, and from thax 

 time an entire change for the better took 

 place in his life. (Applause.) 



Hon. Herbert Nicholls, M.H.A., ex~ 

 Ministei^ ot Education, «aid that Mr. 

 Johnson's lecture struck him as sound- 

 ing the drum which was to signalise the 

 freedom of one very much wronged indivi- 

 dual—the child with a character. The 

 child who conld reason out a problem of 

 Euclid but could not memorise it had 

 been the victim of previous systems. 

 Henceforth, he was glad to know, that 

 the character of the child would be re- 

 cognised as the important thing to be 

 studied. Australian and Tasmanian chil- 

 dren cud not lack individuality and 

 originality, and if they were allowed to 

 develop in their own way, they would 

 have a far more vigorous and intelligent 

 community in the future than they had 

 ever had in the past. (Applause.) 



Hon. W. B. Propsting, M.L.C., Minis- 

 ter of Education, said if Mr. Johnson's 

 paper erLabled the bnlk of the people to 

 realise what the new education meant a 

 great deal would have been achieved. It 

 meant that in the future children were 

 not to be treated as machines to carry 



