438 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 



are of opinion that for the growth and maintenance of mental health 

 a system should be adopted of — 



1. Short school hours of vigorous work, guided or independent, 

 broken by frequent intervals of relaxation. 



2. That teachers be encouraged to secure the co-operation of parents 

 in affording the children opportunities to develop their own individuality 

 in homo life. 



3. That no home lessons be set by the school for younger children. 



4. That the curriculum of elementary schools should include a scheme 

 for organised play. 



5. That organised play should consist of such games as will develop the 

 physical and mental powers of the child in grace of movement, voice 

 culture and imagination, and will continue in the home the lessons 

 unconsciously taught under this system. 



The Committee desire to be reappointed and ask for a grant of 51. 



Studies most suitable for Elementary Schools. — Report of the Com- 

 mittee, consisting of Sir Philip Magnus {Chairman), Mr. W. 

 Mayhowe Heller (Secretary), Sir W. DE W. Abney, Mr. K. H. 

 Adie, Professor H. E. Armstrong, Miss A. J. Cooper, Miss L. J. 

 Clarke, Mr. George Fletcher, Professor R. A. Gregory, Prin- 

 cipal Griffiths, Mr. A. D. Hall, Dr. A. J. Herbertson, Dr. 

 C. W. KiMMiNS, Professor J. Perry, Mrs. W. N. Shaw, Professor 

 A. Smithells, Dr. Lloyd Snape, Principal Reichel, Mr. H. 

 Richardson, Mr. Harold Wager, Miss Edna Walter, and 

 Professor W. W. Watts, appointed to report upon the Course 

 of Experimental, Observational, and Practical Studies most suitable 

 for Elementcury Schools. 



The consideration of the courses of experimental, observational, and 

 practical studies most suitable for elementary schools has necessarily 

 directed the attention of the Committee to the general curriculum of 

 such schools, with particular reference to the Government Code. Some 

 re -arrangement of the subjects of instruction would need to be made if 

 room is to be found for practical studies, and if such studies are to 

 become an essential part of the curriculum. The Committee are satisfied 

 that the intellectual and moral training, and, indeed, to some extent the 

 physical training also of boys and girls between the ages of 7 and 14, would 

 be greatly improved if active and constructive work on the part of the 

 children were largely substituted for ordinary class teaching, and if much 

 of the present instruction were made to arise incidentally out of, and to 

 be centred around, such work. 



The aim and purpose of elementary instruction for many years was 

 nothing more than the enabling of children to read and write and reckon. 

 If we include in reading not only the art of reading aloud, but the 

 cultivation of a taste for reading and the ability to apply the knowledge 

 so gained to the practical needs of life, and if in teaching a child to 

 write we teach him at the same time to express his ideas intelligibly in 

 written language, and if, further, the child is practically taught the 

 simplest rules of arithmetic, such a training would constitute all that is 



