TRANSAf'TTONS OF SKCTION L. 795 



TUESDAY, AUlfUST 7. 

 The following Papers were read : — 



1. The Inspection and Examination of Schools.^ 

 By Professor H. E. Armstrong, F.R.S. 



2. The Constructive Work of an Inspector of Schools. 

 By W. Mayhowe Heller, B.Sc. 



The transition from a system of payment by results on individual examination 

 to a system of inspection was certainly accompanied for some years, both in 

 English and Irish schools, by a diminution in the proficiency of the pupils in those 

 subjects which had been most severely examined and most mechanically taught 

 under the older system. 



Parents noticed a want of power of applicatioii and concentration in their 

 children, and masters of secondary and technical schools receiving pupils from 

 the primary schools discovered that the mesh of the inspection net was not 

 sufficiently fine to guarantee the standard of proficiency prescribed bj' the Code. 



Among parents there is still a good deal of scepticism as to the eflicacy of 

 inspection, and not a few of the older teachers would welcome a return to a 

 system in which the Procrustean test of examination provided them with a definite 

 standard of efficiency. 



It would indeed be an educational calamity to revert to the system of 

 Chinese slavery of the days of ' payment by results,' and to avoid this danger it is 

 essential that inspection shall guarantee both efficiency of instruction and general 

 proficiency of the pupils. 



The fundamental functions of the inspector of schools are :— 



(rt) To see that value is obtained for the money spent on the educational work 

 of schools. 



{h) To suggest remedies where due educational economy is not practised. 



Although the education authority (either local or central) is responsible for 

 the educational policy of the schools, it must look for advice to its experts, the 

 inspectors, who, better than others, can appreciate the educational needs of a 

 district, and are in a unique position to evaluate the results of the various pro- 

 grammes and methods followed in the schools under their charge. 



AVhetber an official of the local or central authority, the inspector is the 

 servant of that authority ; both he and the teacher receive common instructions 

 from it. The first condition of efficiency is, therefore, that these instructions are 

 wise, clear, and definite, and that they are loyally observed by teacher and 

 inspector alike. 



Under the ' results system ' the duties of the inspector mainly consisted in 

 testing the individual proficiency of pupils in a very restricted programme, and 

 as the system developed in intensity he became more and more an examining 

 machine ; but with the change to more rational methods of allocating grants for 

 education and testing the efficiency of teachers the functions of the inspector 

 underwent at once a complete change. He was now more concerned with the 

 work of the teacher than that of the pupils, and was called upon to act as the 

 guide, philosopher, and friend of the former. If he found that a school was well 

 organised; that the time-table was observed and showed a proper balance of 

 subjects to provide the necessary types of training ; that the teachers were doing 

 the work best suited to their abilities and experience ; that definite and well- 

 considered schemes of instruction were drawn up in advance for the year's woi-k ; 

 that the teaching received adequate preparation ; that the tone of pupils was good 



' Fublished in the School World, September 1906. 



