876 REPORT— 1903. 



The following Papers were read :— • 



1. On School Curricula. 



i. By Professor Michael E. Sadler, M.A., LL.D. 

 1. Curriculum of Primary and Freparatory Sclwols, 



Under this head are included («) public elementary schools the curriculum of 

 which ends about fourteen; (b) schools which are preparatory to secondary schools 

 (these again in turn are preceded by instruction given either in schools for little 

 children or by governesses) ; and (c) kindergarten and preparatory schools attached 

 to secondary schools. 



Nature and Scope of Early Studies. — In this grade of education there is great 

 advantage in educating boys and girls together. In many ways these early years 

 are educationally the most critical years of a child's life. Great importance 

 should be attached to the aptitude of the teachers, and to their sympathy with 

 young children. Care should be taken to avoid (1) rigid separation of the subjects, 

 and (2) on the other hand namby-pambiness. Children are not strengthened for 

 the tasks of later years by being kept back too long from facing real difficulties. 

 The point of junction between the kindergarten and the lower school needs more 

 attention educationally than it has generally received. 



In this stage of education special importance should be attached to training 

 the powers of expression alike in the mother tongue, with the brush, with the 

 fingers, and (through dancing and physical drill) with the body and limbs. The 

 ideal course of education for little children is one which carefully combines 

 onousike and gumnastike. Much can be done to lay a good foundation for the study 

 of geometry. Stress may also be laid on the importance of the intelligent teaching 

 of arithmetic. In the curriculum, at this stage, history-teaching best takes a bio- 

 graphical form, but diiferent children show remarkably different aptitudes for 

 historical studies. Emphasis should be laid on the need for good teaching of 

 geography, and for the intelligent study of living things (particularly of plant life) ; 

 on singing and physical exercises, and on well-organised and carefully supervised 

 school-games. So far as it can be arranged, group-work is to be recommended, 

 e.g. in connection with the teaching of history and literature, rough models can 

 be made by a small class of children. Modelling, drawing, simple carpentry, 

 painting, and other forms of expression through the hand are particularly valuable. 

 Care should be taken to encourage children to ask questions instead of discouraging 

 anything which interrupts a preconceived plan of lesson. A good school combines 

 discipline with the encouragement of individuality. 



Effect of Scholarship Examinations on the Curricula of Preparatory Schools. — 

 The powers of different children vary so greatly in degree and in rapidity of 

 development that it is very difficult to mention a point up to which a common 

 course of instruction should be carried. There is reason to regret the numbing 

 effect of our public-school scholarship and entrance examinations on the education 

 of little boys. The grip of the classical tradition is nowhere more mischievous 

 than in the control of the education of little boys up to the age of twelve. In our 

 preparatory schools (admirable as they are in tone and in their individual care of 

 the character of the boys), we fail properly to teach them the use of their mother 

 tongue ; we fail as regards the teaching of history and the creation of a love for 

 literature ; we fail to make proper use of geography as a school subject ; we have 

 far too little manual training and drawing ; and there is little leisure for the 

 intelligent study of nature. And the root of all the trouble is the artificially 

 high standard of attainment in Latin and Greek which is required at the public 

 schools at their enti'ance examinations. 



ImjJrovement desirable in Classical Teaching. — In order to facilitate the trans- 

 ference of promising pupils from the elementary schools to the secondary schools 

 at twelve years of age, much is to be said for the ' reformed cxirricula ' which are 

 now being adopted in an increasing number of German classical schools, 



