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the time, if not retrogression in the cause of Technical Instruction. In certain cases small jealousies have prevented the co-operation of Burgh Council and School Board, the former refusing to hand over a share of its grant for educational purposes because the School Board has the power to raise money by a rate if it require it! No good educational work can be done, at any rate the best cannot be done, unless there is some sort of security of grants and assurance of permanence in the policy inaugurated. This under present conditions there cannot be.

The case may be put shortly thus: Elementary Education is fairly well organised, and in many respects highly efficient; if it stood alone, then, so far as mere administrative grounds are concerned, legislative change would require stronger justification than any that has yet appeared.

In the field of Secondary Education chaos reigns supreme. Multiplicity of agency is aggravated by insecurity of resources. There are several unrelated bodies all operating on their own lines, with consequent overlapping,

antagonism, confusion. There is lacking proper co-ordination of Secondary to Elementary below, and to University above. Nothing short of legislation can clear up the situation. There is a real "Education Question ". The assumption that Parliament must come to the rescue is justified. Homer expresses our local dilemma

οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη· εἷς κοίρανος ἔστω.

CHAPTER III.

RELATIONS OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION.

THE question then arises on what lines legislation is to proceed. How is order to be evolved from the chaos? How is the present waste of energy and of resources to be checked? How is the maximum of efficiency to be secured for the Secondary School?-for that is the main desideratum at the moment.

In Education, of all things, it has constantly to be remembered that machinery and apparatus and statistics are not an objective. We may have all these to perfection, and yet the Education may be lacking in the vitality and inspiration which alone render it of value. The means are not to be mistaken for the end. Everything exists for the sake of the school, of the education itself, to wit, the pupils and the teacher. Let it then be understood that our

systems of administration have this for their first aim, to give the teacher and his pupils a better chance. Efficiency comes first, and that by a long way, though economy and simplicity are elements that should not be overlooked.

Another remark to be made at the outset is this Secondary Education does not stand by itself. Experience has shown us more and more clearly that no hard and fast line can be drawn between Secondary and Elementary. Hence the discussion of the reorganisation of Secondary Education involves Elementary at the same time. We cannot agree to rule the Elementary School, and we might add the University, out of our count, and proceed to elaborate a system suitable for Secondary Education alone. fact, the greatest difficulty of all is to manage the transition from the Primary to the Secondary stage, and to find the most profitable employment for that transitional stage represented by the years twelve to fourteen, which the two stages of instruction have in common. Secondary then involves Primary.

In

It will be generally conceded that in educational administration in a country like this there

must be at least two bodies concerned, a central and a local. So long as Government gives large subsidies to Education, it must have a means of ascertaining that they are being usefully employed, and that the conditions are being observed on which they have been given. On the other hand, if rates are levied locally there must be a local body to assess them and to take the oversight of their application, as well as to maintain that touch between the school and its constituency which is a prime condition of healthy activity. Between the two governing bodies there will be, or ought to be, the closest touch and the most harmonious co-operation in all that relates to the welfare of the school.

It is important that our ideas should be perfectly clear on this subject. Governing bodies are not of the essence of Education at all; at best they are a necessary evil. Education requires for its full efficiency only two persons— the pupil and the teacher. The ideal is when the latter has a perfectly free hand-always assuming that he is competent to use his freedom aright—and an unoccupied mind. The task of educating a single pupil, not to say a

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