TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 833 
and to crown with their highest honours, not those who happened to be swiftest 
of foot or strongest in the wrestling bout, but the man of sound mind, wise and 
just, who does most to guide others in the more excellent ways, and to uplift the 
life of his community : 
GoTis Hyetra TOAEL 
Kddducra, copper kai Sixatos dv avnp. 
Here we have a warning by no means inappropriate to our own life and its 
tendencies. It is, indeed, high time to bring serious and, let us say, scientific 
thought to bear upon the whole matter. 
As I look with such thoughts in my mind over those portions of the educa- 
tional field with which I have been personally familiar, I note various things 
which seem to call for both consideration and action. 
Taking first the elementary school, it is to be noted that our system does too 
little to draw out and stimulate the faculties or to form the tastes of each 
individual child. 
Classes are still in many cases far too large. 
The system of block grants, being inadequately safeguarded or supplemented 
by inducements to individual children to apply and prepare for certificates of merit 
or proficiency, however attractive it may be to inspectors and teachers, needs to 
be very carefully watched in the interests of individual children. The individual 
child requires the hope and stimulus of some personal recognition or distinction, if 
its faculties are to be fully roused and its tastes properly cultivated. 
Moreover, the aid of scientific thought and experience is needed to bring both 
the subjects and methods of instruction into closer and more vital relationship 
with the environment of the children and with their practical requirements, and 
more weight has to be given to specific ethical teaching, that moral and spiritual 
training day by day, which has for its end the development and strengthening of 
character, and taste, and issues in conduct, which is the greater part of life. 
And seeing that it is of the essence of any rational or scientific system to avoid 
needless waste, it is time that our elementary education should no longer be left 
in its absurdly truncated condition, which allows a child’s education to be stopped 
abruptly and finally at or about the age of twelve, when in the nature of things it 
should be only beginning. As things are at present, just when the parent of the 
upper classes is anxiously considering what school will be the best for his son, a 
vast number of the children of the poorer classes are left by the State to drift out 
into a wilderness where all things are forgotten. 
In this connection, however, it is due to the Board of Education that we take 
note of the reminders lately issued in the Introduction to the New Code and the 
memorandum prefixed to the Regulations for the Training of Teachers. 
This Introduction to the Code reminds every parent, school-manager, and 
teacher, very emphatically, that the purpose of the school is to form and strengthen 
the character and to develop the intelligence of the children, to fit them both 
practically and intellectually for the work of life, to send them forth with good 
and healthy tastes and the desire to know, with habits of observation and clear 
reasoning, with a living interest in great deeds and great men, and some 
familiarity with, at all events, some portion of the literature and history of their 
country ; and this being so, the special charge and duty of their teachers is by the 
spirit of their discipline and of their teaching, by their personal example and 
influence, to foster in the children, as they grow up in their hands, habits of 
industry, self-control, endurance, perseverance, courage, to teach them reverence 
for things and persons good or great, to inspire them with love of duty, love of 
purity, love of justice and of truth, unselfishness, generosity, public spirit, and so 
not merely to reach their full development as individuals, but also to become 
upright and useful members of the community in which they live and worthy 
sons and daughters of the community to which they belong. 
Hardly less valuable, as a contribution to education which shall be more 
thoughtful than hitherto, is the memorandum prefixed to the new Regulations lor 
the Training of Teachers. 
1904. 3H 
