TARANAKI GOVERNMENT GAZETTE.

profession they have taken up. Effi-
cient teachers can scarcely be expected
to be procurable till the Government establishes a central normal school for
the whole Colony.

The educational status of our schools
is precisely that of the National and
British schools of fifty years ago.
There is generally the same feeble and
unnatural style of reading, the same
halting and imperfect spelling, the
same limited acquaintance with
arithmetic, the same ignorance of
history, geography, and grammar. The
profound ignorance of geography in
our schools, and especially of the
geography of New Zealand, is remark-
able. I have found but one or two
children who could give me the names
of the New Zealand provinces, and not
one who could inform me of the names
of the principal rivers, mountains,
and harbours of the island on which
we dwell. The causes of this state of
things are to be found in the fact that
with trifling exceptions our schools
have not been furnished with maps,
in thenon-existence, until very recently,
of comprehensive works upon the
geography of this country, in the
miserable pittances hitherto paid as
salaries to the teachers, and in the
opinion that has been entertained by
many that mere reading, writing, and
arithmetic form an ample curriculum
for the youth of the province. I hold
that primary education should comprise
far more than these, and that if more
than these be not imparted to a child
he will, unless possessed of more than
ordinary mental vigor, remain a dunce
all his days. "The value of educa-
tion," says the Dean of Hereford,
"cannot be said to depend solely on
the amount of knowledge given at
school, but rather on the tendency
which such knowledge has to make
the children alive to the humanities of
life, to fit them for their industrial
occupations, to raise them in the scale
of thinking beings, and make them
feel what they owe to themselves and
to those around them—to open out to
them those sources of fireside amuse-
ments and of instruction which the art
of printing has brought within the reach
of all who are educated. Now, to
effect this, the mere reading by rote is
not sufficient, and it should be the aim
of the schoolmaster, as far as he has it
in his power, to give the children a
knowledge of the structure of their
own language—to enable them to get
at the grammar of a sentence—to take
it to pieces and reconstruct it; and
unless children are left at school until
this can be done, and they are enabled
to get at the meaning of an ordinary
book without difficulty, little use will
I fear, be made of it in after life, and
the fireside will not become—what it
otherwise might be through good
books—a school through life."

I see no reason why our children
should not be further instructed in
arithmetic. Having mastered the
rules of proportion there is no reason
why they should not advance to vulgar
and decimal fractions. A knowledge
of the latter is especially needed now
that decimals are used in all scientific
formulas where numbers are required.
The importance of instruction in
history and geography must be obvious
to every correct mind.

Lessons in political economy are
needed; not only so far as the science
bears on industrial life, but also to teach
the duty which the individual owes
to the State. Cut off from Home
traditions; living under a Constitution
essentially Democratic; absorbed by the
desire to grow rich, we are fast gliding
into a frigid individualism, and pro-
ceeding to the antipodes of that
peculiarity of Hellenic civilisation—the
absorption of the man in the citizen.
Hence the necessity of an endeavor to
instil into the hearts and minds of
the children that patriotism which, like
cement, binds units individually weak
into a mighty whole.

The humanising, elevating, and
purifying power of poetry should not
be lost sight of; and if the harmonious
sisters, music and verse, could have a
place in all our schools, I am sure the
effect of their presence would not be
otherwise than beneficial.

The study of natural history ought
to form a part of the curriculum of
every school, not only for the pure
pleasure it imparts to many minds, but
also for the power it possesses of
cultivating the perceptive faculties.

More attention to moral and physical
purity is needed in some of our schools.
Words suggestive of impurity must
most certainly be expunged from the
walls of the schoolhouses, and obscene
scribblers should receive severe punish-
ment. Rubbish and lumber should
be removed, and the school-rooms
swept every evening. Clean hands
and faces should be required of the
children, and attendance at school
without boots, except in cases of
poverty, should not be permitted.