CHAPTER I.

EXPLANATION OF REQUIREMENTS.

INTRODUCTION.—In the following pages an effort has been made to point out the way to success in earning the grant for special merit (Revised Code, 1883). The author pretends to no originality; but simply records his experience as teacher, lecturer on school management, and inspector of Board Schools containing ten thousand children. He has endeavoured to avoid reference to much-disputed points, and sought to bring into a limited compass the generally recognized methods of many of the most successful teachers of the country. He has also given earnest attention to the recommendations of H.M.'s Inspectors, and to the means of success adopted by some of the largest School Boards and most thoughtful School Managers in the country.

The treatise is specially designed for the use of Junior Teachers, as a manual of the art and science of Teaching; on which Head Teachers may base applications and illustrations in the daily conduct of the school. For this purpose a copy should be placed in the hands of the pupil teachers, ex-pupil teachers, and assistants.

THE MERIT CLAUSE.-Most persons who have had practical experience of recent codes will confess that these instruments have had a tendency

(a) To stereotype the methods of teaching.

(b) To check the progress of the more intelligent pupils,

in seeking to bring to one low level of uniform acquirement the irregular and inattentive scholars.

(c) To discourage sufficient attention being paid to the cultivation of intelligence.

(d) To ignore inventiveness and originality on the part of teachers in devising better methods of instruction.

(e) To keep the most intelligent children, for months in every school year, listlessly employed in dry mechanical tasks requiring technical accuracy, but little power of thought.

(f) To discourage teachers placed in abnormally difficult surroundings in neglected centres; and

(g) To ignore skill in administration and government, as if method were everything, and management of minor consequence.

In the Merit Clause of the Revised Code of 1883 an attempt is made, by special payment, to recognize special skill in securing good Tone and Discipline, the best methods of instruction, and the most valuable results of a teacher's labours; while strict attention is enjoined to the difficulties of special surroundings. This laudable effort will doubtless end in success, when good teachers conscientiously endeavour to second it, according as H.M.'s Inspectors are far-seeing, penetrative, skilled in their work, rigorously just, patient and careful to discriminate; or, on the other hand, in failure under young and inexperienced Inspectors, impulsive, and incapable of excluding their own "personal equation."

Success in teaching the "three R's" will be a factor present to the mind of an Inspector in coming to a decision on the Merit Grant-as this is made to partly depend on "the general quality of the work, especially in the Elementary Subjects" (Revised Code, p. 16).

"The award of the Merit Grant will be the result of several factors of judgment. The quality as well as the

numbers of passes will necessarily reveal to us the most important of the factors; but inferences derived from them alone may be modified by taking into account the skill and spirit of the teaching, the weakness of the schoolroom and its appliances, the accuracy and trustworthiness of the registers, the fitness of the classification in regard to age and capacity, the behaviour of the children, especially the honesty under examination, and the interest they evince in their work. The Code also allows you to make reasonable allowance for 'special circumstances.' A shifting, scattered, very poor or ignorant population; any circumstance which makes regular attendance exceptionally difficult; failure of health, or unforeseen changes among the teaching staff, will necessarily and rightly affect your judgment. It is needful, however, in all such cases, to have regard not only to the existence of special difficulties, but also to the degree of success with which those difficulties have been overcome (Instructions to H.M.'s Inspectors, 1882).

Most teachers will recognize that there may be a wide difference, even so far as the Elementary Subjects alone are concerned, between two schools securing absolutely the same percentage results. Beyond the line of a mere pass in Reading, for instance, there is a wide margin for excellence in expression, emphasis, accurate knowledge of the meanings of words and passages, correct unlaboured aspiration of the letter h, clear enunciation of final consonants, and the other elements that make good reading. When these excellencies are present, they will aid an Inspector in coming to a favourable decision, if otherwise doubtful, on the Merit Grant. These are evidences in the teacher of skill and painstaking not otherwise recognized by the Code; and therefore the teaching of the "three R's" is referred to in the following pages.

"One school may make a very high percentage,

and be inferior, in all that is truly educative, to another with a lower one. The highest function of a teacher is not to produce certain mechanical results, but to stimulate thought, and give an educational impulse; this cannot be done by keeping in a narrow rut, with no thought of anything but securing a certain number of passes at the end of the year. Thoughtful stimulative teaching is the surest way to produce even mechanical accuracy.”—DR. KERR. This matter is referred to also in the Instructions to H.M.'s Inspectors, Merit Clause: "The full value of a school's work is not accurately measured by the results of individual examination, as tabulated in a schedule; and two schools, in which the ratio of passes attained is the same, often differ materially in the quality of these passes, and in general efficiency as places of education. It is in order that these differences may be recognized in calculating the grant, that my Lords have caused the award of a substantial part of that sum to be dependent on the estimate you form of the merit of the school as a whole."

VISITS WITHOUT NOTICE.-Under the Government regulations an "inspector may visit a public elementary school at any other time" (than the annual inspection) "without notice."

It is at such unexpected visits that schools are most likely to be found in their normal condition; and Inspectors will be largely influenced by what they then observe in forming opinions as to

(1)“Suitable instruction in the elementary subjects;" and

(2) "Appropriate and varied occupations," in an Infant School.

(3) Tone, Discipline, and Organization.'

“I have found visits without notice of great value in aiding me to form an estimate of the general

efficiency of a school, more especially of its organization and discipline. The contrast between the appearance of the children on the day of an inspection, and on a visit without notice, should be less marked. The personal cleanliness and general neatness of the pupils are matters that lie strictly within the teacher's province, and are worthy of attention on ordinary working days as much as on the day of inspection."MR. BARRIE.

A CHILD-PHILOSOPHY OF THE SUBJECT.

THE NATURE OF A CHILD.-A workman, to be successful in his craft, must necessarily know

(a) The nature and properties of the materials with which he has to deal;

(b) The best methods of dealing with these.

This knowledge can only be gained inductively to be of practical use, viz. by Observation and Experiment. Any other process will be empirical; founded on quack notions rather than on logical sequence. This observation and experiment may be either that of the teacher himself, or the combined experience of others who have gone before him. But before the latter can be of real use to the individual, it must have been tested and put into practice by each one for himself.

Young teachers, who start on their career with the determination to find out for themselves the best methods of teaching, without seeking the aid to be gained from the success and failures of others, will require a longer apprenticeship than those who are willing to recognize age and experience are potent factors in the conduct of life. Hundreds of young teachers are annually pronounced by weak Head Teachers to be totally inefficient, who, when placed under the charge of more skilled

that