4,02 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— L. 



The question naturally arises how this ideal can best be realised. Commercially 

 and culturally English and Afrikaans are not on a footing of equality, and conse- 

 quently the Dutch have all along the line been far more eager to learn the English 

 language than the English to learn Afrikaans. And very many leaders of educational 

 thought in our country have been and still are of opinion that the best and quickest 

 way to teach the second language to Afrikaans-speaking children is to make them 

 study all their school subjects in English. But, curiously enough, this theory was not 

 advanced in the case of EngUsh-speaking children who had to master Afrikaans. 

 Except in the Argentine Repubhc, where teachers who are preparing to teach foreign 

 languages get their instruction in the training colleges through these foreign languages, 

 one knows of no country where e.g. history is taught in a foreign language in order to 

 teach them that language. 



On educational grounds there can be no argument advanced against mother- 

 tongue medium either in a bilingual country or in any other country. But there 

 may be objections on other grounds. There may be a dearth of suitable teachers 

 who know the vernacular of the children to be taught as we have it, e.g. in India and 

 among the native races in Africa. There may be no text-books in the language, or 

 the language may not be sufficiently developed to teach through it. Or the ruling 

 nation may be afraid lest the allowing of two or more language groups might land them 

 in all manner of political difficulties. The American poUcy of Americanisation is a 

 good example of this. Rhodesia furnishes another example. This experiment was 

 tried on a large scale in Poland in the nineteenth century, and is being tried now in 

 the Tyrol. 



Discussion : Prof. F. Clarke. 



Wednesday, July 24. 



Joint Meeting (Sections J, L) on Psychological Tests in relation to 

 Education and Vocational Guidance. (See p. 378.) 



Thursday, July 25. 



Presidential Address by Dr. C. W. Kimmins on Modern Movements 

 in Education. (See p. 217.) 



Examinations and the Secondary Schools : 



(a) Mr. J. L. Holland. — Examinations leading to the Secondary School. 



I propose to discuss the group of examinations which have been established by 

 the Local Education Authorities in England and Wales for the purpose of regulating 

 the free admission of ex-elementary school pupils to the public secondary schools : they 

 are not the only examinations, but they are the most important. The local education 

 authorities concerned are the Councils of the Counties and County Boroughs, appointed 

 to this service by the Education Act, 1902. That Act created a partnership between 

 them and the State, under which the Authorities provide the service and the Board of 

 Education decide whether the provision is adequate, the cost being divided between 

 the two. 



It was the first appearance on the Statute Book of the conception of local respon- 

 sibihty for secondar}^ education. Elementary education, on the other hand, had 

 been on this basis since Forster's Act of 1870 : for thirty years it had been organised 

 and developed by a Government Department and local School Boards, neither of which 

 had any concern with secondary education. In consequence, our elementary and 

 secondary schools are not yet related one to the other in a national system of education. 

 Since 1902 great progress has been made with the development of secondary education 

 and the co-ordination of the two types of schools. At the present time nearly 40,000 

 children are selected each year from the elementary schools for free secondary educa- 

 tion, that is, about one in ever}' nine elementarj* school children of the appropriate age. 

 With this selection we are now concerned. 



