Adams. — On Early Instruction. 179 



become convinced of this very evident truth, there will be some truth in the 



lines : 



" When a man's the sport of heaven, 

 To keep a school the wretch is driven." 



The first great step in primary instruction will be made when the convic- 

 tion becomes general that an incompetent teacher does as much injury to the 

 young mind when most vigorous, as such a one fails to do good to those 

 advanced in years; but so long as it is thought that every one with a so-called 



good education can be a teacher we shall have no change in our present 

 system. 



If it is desired to correct any physical defect in a child, the best physicians 

 are consulted during the child's earliest years, because the changes in the body 

 during its development are more rapid than in later years; and although it is 

 acknowledged that the mind is equally susceptible of improvement and of 

 injury during these years, yet the cultivation of it is generally entrusted to a 

 man who has no conception how minds perceive or reflect or generalize — who 

 would be surprised to hear that a teacher is very certain to do no little harm 

 if he does not know in what way concrete ideas become abstract, and simple 

 become complex. 



>od teacher would develope and enlarge all that a child learns before 

 going to school, so that the outer world would become better known every 

 day. His eye would be quickened in detecting the diversity of the colours of 

 the flowers and the variety of shapes in the leaves. His interest in animal 

 life would also daily increase by the mind being directed to their habits and 

 their instincts and their uses. During those four years now so shamefully 

 wasted, the perceptions of a child can be so quickened, and his ideas so 

 enlarged on objects of natural history, that a museum would become a 

 necessity in every town for advanced schools on account of the stores it 

 possesses for instruction in science and history. 



Our fine collection of New Zealand plants woidd no longer remain shut 

 up in the herbarium hid from mortal eyes, the collection of birds and fishes 

 and reptiles would be examined for instruction, and not to merely gratify a 

 vague curiosity which neither generalizes nor separates nor awakens any ideas 

 that the memory can retain. I am of opinion that a clearer notion of the 

 history of human life can be given by a comparison of the implements, 

 ornaments and apparel manufactured by Maoris with those now used by the 

 English than is at present conveyed by compelling a child to learn the 

 domestic troubles of various kings and nobles in remote ages. 



An institution such as this museum is unquestionably in advance of the 



times. 



the 



bear unon the studv of the works of nature and 



