ON STUDIES MOST SUITABLE FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 443 



The syllabus is not in any way binding ; the teachers can modify it 

 according to the particular need of the pupil and according to local 

 conditions, which vary, for instance, in agricultural and in industrial 

 neighbourhoods. 



' As with needlework, indirect application or correlation is adopted as 

 much as possible ; reading, writing, arithmetic, botany, hygiene and other 

 lessons are brought into toxich with domestic economy. 



' The teachers encourage the girls to practise at home what they learn 

 at school, and to apply principles of order and neatness to their own per- 

 sons, and also to their younger brothers and sisters. In most well con- 

 ducted elementary schools the girls, in turn, are expected to keep their 

 own class-room clean and tidy— polish handles, dust, &c.— in addition to 

 the ordinary function of monitress. In rural districts, many primary 

 schools have a garden where the pupils are given practical instruction.' 



It is evident that teaching of the kind here indicated can be given 

 only by well-trained teachers. To secure instructors who are competent 

 to make practical studies the essential part of elementary education, the 

 principles underlying the curriculum of training colleges would need 

 revision. It is indeed of the utmost importance that teachers in training 

 should receive a sound literary education. No teacher can be efficient 

 without literary culture. It is equally necessary that the training college 

 should afford adequate instruction in the practice of teaching and in the 

 history and theory of education ; but, in addition to these subjects, 

 practical work and the methods of directing it should occupy a much more 

 prominent part in the curriculum than is at present allotted to it. 



The study of experimental science, whether physical or biological, must 

 be pursued so far as to enable the student to have a firm grip of his sub- 

 ject, and to be capable of arranging courses of lessons suitable -to the 

 requirements of children. The general training should be such as will 

 enable the teacher to correlate the ordinary subjects of school instruction 

 with' the practical studies to be developed in the school. This is a branch 

 of pedagogy to which it would seem that very little attention has been so 

 far civen. The dominating influence of examinations which teachers are 

 required to pass, the insufficient time devoted to training in practical 

 studies, whether in the laboratory or workshop, are among the causes 

 which prevent training colleges, as at present organised, from affording 

 the kind of education which experience has shown to be necessary to 

 enable teachers to direct and to take part in the practical training of their 

 scholars. It has been well said by an inspector who has had large experi- 

 ence that ' few teachers on leaving the training college have realised what 

 thoughtful teaching means. As a theory, they will agree that formation 

 of habit and character should be, perhaps, the first aim of a school, but, 

 finding it troublesome to adopt as a working hypothesis, they too often 

 attempt to console themselves by calling it faddism. They consequently 

 fall into routine methods and lack initiative, and, failing to realise that 

 inquiry is the rock-bottom method in all teaching, they thankfully accept 

 rules that will save them the trouble of thinking.' 



The reform of the training college curriculum is, therefore, the condi- 

 tion precedent to any satisfactory change in the character of the teaching 

 given in our elementary schools ; but it is no part of the work of the 

 Committee to do more than to indicate in the barest outline the direction 

 that such changes should take. 



Of equal importance with the improvement of the training college 



