General Examination of Normal Schools. CHRISTMAS, 1866. MALE CANDIDATES-SECOND YEAR. SCHOOL MANAGEMENT. No part of the first Section may be omitted by any candidate. Not more than one Question is to be answered in each of the remaining Sections. SECTION I. What is the meaning of the word "average"? Give a full explanation of it. What is the exact method of finding the three following numbers from Class Registers : : (1) The average number of days made by each child who has been present at all, in a given quarter. (2) The average quarterly attendance. (3) yearly What are the particulars required by the Committee of Privy Council on Education, to be given from the School Registers in the Annual Return (Form ix.) which the managers have to make ? How should the Registers be constructed, and kept, so as to give these particulars with the greatest accuracy. and the least delay ? Having found your average annual attendance for the whole school, how will it be affected by finding that some of the children are not of that class for whose education public aid is offered by the Government ? SECTION II. Describe the best organization you could devise for a School of 200 Boys, with a full supply of teaching power; and what books and school apparatus you would require. SECTION III. Write out a Time Table for one of these cases (1) A School of 89 children in average attendance-(No Pupil Teacher). SECTION IV. I. What are the advantages and disadvantages of Mixed Schools? What special regulations would be required for such Schools? 2. How may Evening Classes for Adults be best combined with a Day School in which the Master has Pupil Teachers? 3. What is the best method ot teaching your Pupil Teachers to attain a power of English Composition ? SECTION V. Write an essay on the best method of securing regular attendance. SECTION VI. Write a letter on the duties and prospects of the Schoolmaster. Papers for the Schoolmaster. No. XXVI.-NEW SERIES. FEBRUARY 1ST, 1867. EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS AND PROGRESS DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Pestalozzianism-Home and Colonial School Society. Continued from p. 5. The cultivation of the intelligence, though "considered of minor importance as compared with physical and moral training, yet received. more elaborate attention than either of the others. This, perhaps, was due to the nature of the case, as the defects in infant training and in school education generally were more apparent in the department of intellect than in the others. It might also be owing partly to the forcing process which yet lingered in infants' schools,-a process, to which this Society may be said to have given a more legitimate direction rather than to have banished from infant culture. Adopting the principles of Pestalozzi, this Society's work was rather to frame a method for their application than to expound them, examine their soundness, or ascertain their limits. Hence its largest gifts to infant training, are its elaborate plans for the cultivation of the senses. It is true that they speak of the cultivation, not of one, but of all the intellectual faculties. But the provision by this Society is for their germ, or rudimentary condition only. Such powers as conception, memory, sense of relation and analogy, and judgment are brought into early rudimentary exercise in connection with the senses, and for their cultivation, so far, provision is made. A higher or more advanced culture— as that of the conceptive faculty and sense of analogy advocated by Isaac Taylor and practised by Stow-whether thought legitimate or not -is certainly not attempted. This claim to have provided for the cultivation of all the intellectual faculties, can be received only with this limited interpretation. In fact it is not always clear what is understood by "intellectual faculty." true. Sometimes it would seem as if meant to imply with the Phrenologists-that a difference in the object or in the organ, indicates a different intellectual power. But this is not Lessons addressed to the touch, do not necessarily differ from lessons addressed to the eye, as to the intellectual faculty exercised. There is a difference of organ, not one necessarily of intellectual power. Every mental element in the one act may be precisely that in the other. Of course, with a variation of aim, even when employing the same organ, there may be a change in the nature of the mental act. To give employment to the several senses, and to bring into activity each intellectual faculty in its rudimentary state, and recognizing that each has its own place in the order of development and activity, courses of instruction were prepared in a variety of things. Besides common objects, plants, and animals, these courses embraced colour, form, size, weight and place, physical actions and employments, the human body, drawing and number. The following remarks indicate the method. The instruction should be carefully graduated, rising step by step from the simplest elements to as high a point of difficulty as may be presumed to be within the grasp of the infant mind. Principles and practices should be presented in immediate connection, so as to illustrate their mutual dependence. All details of practice should flow naturally from the first truths on which they are founded. The general object should be not the direct impartation of knowledge, but rather the cultivation of mental powers by bringing them into healthy exercise, and the formation thereby of valuable mental habits. It is also to be remembered that the subjects are to go on side by side. Variety will thus be given, and diverse powers of mind be simultaneously and progressively developed. The first step in mental tuition should be the education of the senses, and their organs. Where this is judiciously carried out, the mind will be furnished with clear and distinct ideas, without the risk of its being overstrained. 1 "The office of the senses,' says Miss Mayo, "is to store the mind with ideas. The medium must be by real tangible objects. The first exercises should begin with miscellaneous objects, though not altogether without arrangement, as a definite aim ought to be proposed in every lesson." Object lessons hence supply what is natural for the child to learn. An infant's first impressions are from objects, and its first knowledge about them. At first but a passive recipient of impressions, he soon comes to take an active part in learning their various qualities. This goes on in a desultory way all through infancy. In the object lesson this natural tendency is utilized, and the child is judiciously and systematically directed in the employment of its senses. Thus object lessons educate the senses,-they stimulate the power of observation, and they help to form the habit of accurately doing so. Without cultivation obvious qualities often escape notice, and a superficial mode of looking at things is the consequence. Object lessons, besides cultivating the senses lay up material for reflection. This latter habit is always the more valuable when it is based on the habit of observation. Rightly conducted, a habit of reflection will be cultivated alongside that of observation. No facts coming under the cognizance of the senses are isolated: all are related to others. Some of these facts are obvious; others only to be discovered by comparison, experiment, or other modes of inquiry. In a good object lesson, that which lies immediately under observation will be used as a stepping-stone to that which is less apparent. This lays the foundation of reflection, and to a habit of not resting in the superficial, but of tracing out connections between related facts. Object lessons give an intelligent use of language, and add to its stores. The idea is gained, and then the word is given. Thus the idea is fixed, and the word makes it readier for use. And it is easy to see how; for here is a two-fold force by which the idea becomes ready for use. The idea has its associations with others had previously or at the same time, and when these appear that will appear too: but attaching it to a word brings in the physical element of speech, and here is another, though mysterious, agent for recalling the idea when wanted, and for employing it. Words thus obtained will be used significantly, and will become powers for further observation and additional acquisitions. The method of these lessons must be that of stimulating the children to discover the qualities for themselves. The teacher must not come as it were between the object and the children, by his language or mode of dealing with it. It is not by the words he puts into their mouths, but by the tact with which he stimulates and directs their senses, that the purpose of the object lesson is attained. They must hear, see, and touch, and not depend for the facts either on him or their companions. This is a point requiring constant care, from neglect of which, the object lesson too often degenerates into mere word stringing. It is recommended that the lessons be given in a graduated and progressive course. The age of the children should be considered, and their previous opportunities and training. As a first step with young children, it will be sufficient to take the most familiar objects, to distinguish and name them, to elicit their uses, and where usually seen. A second step would be to lead to the perception of quality, but not to give it expression, except in the case of the term being familiar. As a further advance when the children are prepared for it, two objects should be introduced as subjects of the lesson; one of them chosen to lead to the observation of parts, the other to develope some striking or characteristic quality. With these views an object is presented, having distinct and well-defined parts, —as a knife,—that the children may discover the parts, and learn to apply the correct names; also another object is chosen, exhibiting in a remarkable degree, some particular quality,-as transparency in glass,that the idea of the quality may be developed. As a test that the idea has been gained, the children are to find examples of the same quality in other objects. At this stage the children may be aided to remember what they learn, and to arrange it somewhat methodically, if the first letter of the word naming a part or a quality is written on the black-board. As the children advance in power, they must be led not only to discover the qualities of objects, but also the purpose for which they fit the object. They must also be practised in deciding by which of the senses they have become acquainted with a quality, and what organ they exercised. They are also to be led to see that there are some qualities not recognized by the senses, but only known from experience or by the exercise of judgment. And as a final step, they are to be led to compare objects, to discover points of resemblance or dissimilarity. During this course, the children as early as possible should be set to write on slates what they can remember of their lessons,-8 practice which accomplishes several good purposes: it is a motive to attention; it serves to fix the ideas in the mind; it accustoms the children to orderly arrangement and expression; and it is a good exercise in spelling. It is recommended, that in connection with the later stages, the derivation of the chief terms employed should be given; but how this belongs to observation, or tends to quicken the organs of sense, or comes within the province of intuition, is not shown. Lessons on shells, plants and animals, extend the range and purpose of object lessons. Those on animals, especially, have all the advantages of such lessons enhanced by the interest they awaken, and by the opportunities they give of comparison, of tracing cause and effect, and of drawing inferences and conclusions from facts. The interest such lessons excite quickens attention, and causes observation to be more minute and careful. Such lessons, too, have a moral value in encouraging feelings of kindness and in preventing cruelty, much of what is so in the treatment of the lower animals by children being the offspring of ignorance. They have also a religious value, by awakening feelings of admiration and reverence, under the manifestations of wisdom and goodness, which are continually made apparent to them. "The right principle," says Mr. Tegetmeier, "to be followed in lessons on animals is this,-lead the children to see the intimate connexion between the habits of an animal, its propensities, and its formation; how |