Abstract

NOTHING could be more unsatisfactory than the present position of the knowledge and teaching of science in our elementary schools. Notwithstanding all the advantages that have been offered to pupil-teachers for the study of science, as a body they appear to be in a most deplorable state in this respect. Though success in the examinations of the Science and Art Department are now taken into account in placing the students of the training colleges for their teaching certificates, and average school boys when they have been fairly taught are quite competent for these examinations, yet very few of the teachers have availed themselves of this privilege, and it does not appear that the training colleges have helped them in this respect. Very little, indeed, can be expected while the ordinary pupil-teacher is described, as he is in Mr. Cakeley's report on the working of the Training Colleges, as deficient in many elementary branches, notably mathematics. It is satisfactory, however, to notice that the quality of the candidates for admission to the Training Colleges is improving, and that these institutions are growing in teaching capacity and in popularity. The reports of the examiners for admission are not, with regard to the subject in hand, pleasant reading. One cannot expect good answering in science from candidates who are quite unable to paraphrase an ordinary piece of poetry, or to explain a common English expression. Accordingly we find that in Euclid, algebra, and mensuration, though a few papers were especially meritorious, the vast majority of the answers were very inferior. Few, if any, attempted the easy riders in Euclid, and the examiner remarks that he fears that the pupil-teachers receive but little assistance from those who superintend their work. It is not easy to say whether this poor teaching or defective early training is at the root of the evil. It is worthy of remark that the metropolitan candidates, in their answers to the questions on Euclid, far surpass their provincial competitors. Many amazing blunders are quite common in the algebra papers, such as subtracting the terms of the numerator from those of the denominator, and completely ignoring the signs, and it is stated that the pupil-teachers at Chester at the end of their apprenticeship were unable to work a simple sum in algebra or to write out an easy proposition Mr. Fitch has a very able report on the Training Colleges for schoolmistresses, and from him it is plain that the same defects exist among the female as among the male pupil-teachers. At the admission examination the work in the arithmetic is satisfactory in point of accuracy, but it displays want of method, failure to appreciate the meaning of the question asked, and ignorance of principles. Thus very few of the candidates were able to give an intelligent explanation of simple arithmetical processes, such as subtraction or division. With them, as with the male pupil-teachers, book-work and memory are wholly relied on, and little attention is paid to the intelligent application of principles. “Scarcely three per cent, are able to do much more in the teaching of arithmetic than work sums more or less correctly on the black-board.”

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