measure they are specialised. The people of England have slowly changed their habits and their ways of living because the economic conditions of the country have so altered that what was a necessity at one period of the country's history has now been replaced by some other compelling needs. A hundred influences external to the people of every civilised country are now operating and compelling lines of action and modifications of thought different from what was possible and even necessary. England, for example, do what she will, is being so influenced by external conditions that she is compelled to specialise her industries, so that a worker is merely a finisher of some portion or part of a manufactured article. The growth of the industrial arts and the intercourse between nations are bringing about this new aspect of specialisation. The workshops of the world proceed from the general to the special, and the highest differentiations in the industrial world constitute to-day the greatest specialisation of scientific training.

A brief consideration of the conditions existing in countries like England and France will show that where there are aggregations of people there are of necessity great differentiations in their industrial pursuits, and specialisation exists as a consequence of the differentiations. A new country like our own, in its social and industrial needs, does not call for the complex conditions in the production of wealth such as are called for in the countries named. In a new country wealth is made up mainly of what are known as “raw products”—the direct gifts of the earth.

The industrial warfare in a complex system of society is only possible where there is an assured supply of food products from lands where population is small; and the closer the connection between the two the greater can become the specialisation in production and knowledge. In New Zealand the staple productions are wool, wheat, meat, butter, and cheese. Manufactures form but an insignificant portion of the actual products of the country. The occupancy of the land for sustenance and for production of raw products was the first thought of the early settlers, and it has been so always. The new and the old, whether lands or peoples, act and react upon each other by means of intercourse Isolation acts upon a people as powerfully as intercourse, but in a different way. Intercourse tends to modify the direct effects of environment; but, no matter how free the intercourse, the thoughts and aspirations of a people will always be directly modified by their immediate surroundings. Thus the aims and aspirations of the English people differ from those of the people on the European Continent just as they differ from those of the colonies. It cannot be otherwise. The mind in

a large measure is a reflex of early precepts, and although nationality is something, intercourse is something, latitude is something, the fact remains that “we are what we are” as the outcome of our early associations, whether viewed physically, mentally, or morally. Circumstance has no master, and these conditions that operate in self - preservation, whether as a (State) community or an individual, naturally tend to control all our subsequent activities, no matter in what direction our energies may be directed.

Thus the modern system of commercial intercourse is making the world more and more interdependent—the parts upon the whole and the whole upon the parts—but in what? Formerly a nation was self-contained and self-sustaining. Every country was occupied by its own people, who produced what was needed for their own sustenance and support. The power of self-reliance was a powerful factor in developing aspects of national character that proved of inestimable value so soon as the desire for intercourse and discovery began to manifest itself. The convenience of position has determined the growth of the commercial cities of the world; and, as the growth of new centres of industry proceeds, so will the present lines of influence become modified. Every city, primarily, is dependent in its growth and general well-being upon its position in relation to means of sustenance and prosperity; and it follows that towns in the colonies will grow according to the capacity of a district to sustain their growth by the products of the soil, either in their utilisation or in the fostering of industries. A new country may possess advantages in the way of producing certain articles, and still the best interests of that country may be served by fostering for a time the generalisation rather than the specialisation of production. It is certain that the tea-plant will flourish to perfection in this North Island of ours, and so also will the mulberry, the particular food of the silkworm; but no one that I am aware has ventured to suggest the cultivation of the tea-plant for economic purposes, and certainly it would be a difficult matter to expect the success of the silk industry as against countries like Japan, and China, and even France.

From what is here stated it will be apparent that the question as to what industry should be fostered and what disregarded is of supreme importance to the future of our country. And what is of importance to us in the consideration of questions bearing upon production is of equal importance to others when viewed from their particular standpoint. Adaptation is an attribute of success in any undertaking, either of the individual or the State; nor should we be led astray by the success that one country achieves in a certain direction and think that what one country has achieved can be equally well achieved

by every other country. If we go to nature for our lessons there will be found differentiations and adaptations everywhere, and they are ever in process and active, because whether it be in vertical or horizontal space life is dependent as much upon external as upon internal and local conditions.

The conditions of life in the British Isles and on the European Continent are such that every energy must be brought to bear on the progressive tendencies of the people. Differentiations are various and complex, and the utilisation of waste products and the specialisation of production are carried on in a way that would be deemed absurd, or even impossible, in newer and less populous lands. But competition is a hard taskmaster, and if interchange is needful in the case of ourselves, for example, it must be an interchange of food—of sustaining-power—for those things that art and science have been able to devise by the utilisation of some of nature's bounties in lands where greater differentiations have taken place. It would be hard to say how many devices have been adopted in the preparation of the young to fight their way in the world of industry such as is being made possible by means of science and art. And the means that have been and are being taken in England, and in countries where the problems of living are a hundredfold more complex than they are in this country, have already had an effect upon the thoughts and actions of many persons interested in the furtherance of education.

The claim has been put forward that because science is being fostered in England and on the European Continent therefore we in our public scheme of education should adopt a similar scheme for the benefit of the children. From what has been already stated it must be evident that the needs of the people of this country, both for today and to-morrow, cannot be the same as the needs of the people in other lands, where population, climate, competition, social and political life are so unlike our own. None would venture to urge that the children of any civilised land should receive no preparation for life in face of the fierce competition and struggle through which they will all have to pass. A stepping-stone is a necessity, and the duty of a State is to anticipate the manhood and womanhood of its future citizens and provide accordingly. But what are to be the characteristics of our citizenship as compared with the characteristics of those in other lands? Governments differ, laws differ, necessities differ, and citizenship differs. In New Zealand the products of the soil are largely in excess of the actual wants of the people. Nothing shows clearer than our productions how largely the individual, by means of machinery—or, in other words,

by the help of scientific methods—produces in excess of his own requirements. He is able to do this by utilising the instruments of production in the way that experience directs. The successful farmer in Manitoba might lose his all in New Zealand if he came to farm land in the same way that wins him prosperity and comfort in a country possessing a climate of much wider contrasts, such as British North America presents. And generally the same remark applies. All knowledge has a general and a special value, and in order to insure success the generalisations of science must be understood and applied, subject to varying local conditions and influences—in other words, to environment.

But there are two separate classes of science. The one, known as “pure science,” pursues the study of natural phenomena by and through the exercise of the senses. But observation brings in its train the questions, What? and How? and Why? for a mere acquaintance with an observed fact does not suffice in the pursuit of scientific inquiry. The understanding seeks to be enlightened, and the classification of facts enables inferences to be drawn, and thus provides a basis, as it were, for new lines of thought. Applied science, on the other hand, has reference to the utilisation of scientific facts for economic purposes. The science of to-day, whether natural or applied, is merely the accumulated results of the observations, discoveries, and applications made during the yesterdays of the past.

The growth of production in this country from the time when it came to be known as a land suitable for colonisation shows what is possible without the direct application of scientific methods. The accumulation of facts gained by experience—that is, the elementary application of scientific knowledge—sufficed to direct settlers to certain forms of production, and when partial success had been attained it soon became apparent that production was in excess of the requirements of the country. Intercommunication between Australia and New Zealand began, and as production increased communication was widened. Even without the aid of science in the school system of the country production increased at a rapid rate, but it arose from causes that were in a large measure external to the country itself. The accumulated wealth of England was ready to furnish capital for the production of commodities that would supply yet greater wealth to the English people, and so forms of production were fostered in New Zealand by means of which raw products were furnished to supply themanufacturing industries in England.

If we go back to the state of things in this country just twenty years ago, it will be evident to those who study

economic questions that great changes have taken place in the industrial conditions of the people since then. At that time the staple industries were in a depressed state. Nothing appeared more unpromising than the rearing of sheep. Prices were low, the wool barely sufficed to pay expenses of farming, and there was little or no demand for sheep, whilst vast numbers were annually boiled down merely for their fat. But it was at this time that applied science came to the rescue. The preservation of foods of a perishable nature was receiving the attention of scientists, and the discovery of the “chilling process” in the conveyance of fresh meat between America and England very soon led to the adoption of the “freezing-chamber” for the conveyance of frozen mutton between New Zealand and England. The application of elementary physics in the production of cold air enabled those who knew that putrefaction was stayed and all microbes destroyed at a temperature below freezing-point to realise the great benefits that must accrue by the introduction of machinery for the preservation and conveyance of perishable products. It was soon realised what an important bearing the preservation and conveyance of perishable foods like meat would have upon the markets of the world where meat was dear and was largely consumed by the people. The discovery showed how it would be possible for the industrial world in manufacturing centres to benefit by this simple application of a scientific fact to the conveyance of perishable products. But the discovery illustrated how nearly the producers of raw and of manufactured products are dependent on one another if the highest benefits are to be obtained by the application of science to production. The preservation of perishable foods and their carriage from country to country introduced a new factor in commerce, and made possible a differentiation of production such as could not have been continued under modern colonial conditions but for the discovery that enables a balance to be kept between the producers and consumers of perishable products. A country like our own need have no excess of perishable goods such as are indispensable to the maintenance and support of a high standard of civilised living.

In the year 1882 the talk was of some means of disposing of the excess of sheep, which at the time numbered about thirteen millions. A new factor comes in and so modifies the conditions that the social, the material, and the industrial state of the country is affected, and at the same time the “new factor” influences large communities separated from us by thousands of miles of intervening ocean. We have a glimpse here of the possibilities of the future when science shall regulate production and constitute the foundation of training in the upbringing of every child.

That valuable issue of the Registrar-General, the “Official Year-book,” contains statistics that are worth putting on record here as showing what has been done and is being done in the country as the outcome of scientific discovery in relation to the carriage of foods of a perishable nature. Just twenty years ago the first shipment of frozen meat to England was made, and 15,244 cwt. of mutton, valued at £19,339, were sent away from New Zealand. Since then the export business of frozen meats has grown by leaps and bounds; but butter and cheese have been added to the list of exports, and it would be difficult to suggest what new products will be added to the list of articles that it will be possible to send away during the coming twenty years. Science is, in fact, becoming the handmaid of all production, and it will come to be realised as education advances that all forms of industrial progress are based upon the science of observation. Curiously, it began in the discovery of means for the more rapid utilisation of raw products; but so great has become the power of utilisation that science has now come to the help of producers by showing them along what lines they must go, and suggesting to them how their more perishable goods may be preserved and conveyed from place to place and from country to country without loss or injury. Last year the exports of frozen meats from this country, including mutton, lamb, kidneys, beef, pork, veal, rabbits, hares, poultry, and fish, reached 1,868,100 cwt., or 396,037,200 lb. avoirdupois, and valued at £2,264,120; whilst the butter and cheese sent away under similar conditions reached 305,885 cwt., or 64,847,620 lb., and valued at £1,121,091, or nearly half the value of the total meat export. Here, then, we have facts of great importance to this country in relation to its industrial, social, and commercial conditions. In twenty years, by the direct aid of science, new exports have become possible amounting to a total of £3,385,211 a year, or to more than 26 ½ per cent. of our total exports. If this result is not sufficient to show Parliament and those who are engaged in industrial or commercial pursuits the vast possibilities that science opens out in the way of assisting the material well-being of the people, it will be difficult to suggest a course that is likely to impress them more.

But is the country alive to the importance of scientific instruction as an instrument of production? for I take it that every scientific discovery that leads to the utilisation of the products of the land is an instrument of production from which common benefits spring. Let us see. The Farmers' Union, representing, I believe, the farming interests of the colony, have lately been in conference, and the results of their deliberations as they appear in yesterday's telegrams (8th

July) are set forth in “seven planks,” and members of the union are advised to vote only for those candidates who agree to the platform of the union. Not one of the planks has even a reference to education, or to the necessity of scientific training in the preparation of future farmers along lines that are suggested by the discoveries made in agricultural science and the application of physical laws to the production and preservation of the products of the soil! With all the direct advantages that farmers reap as the outcome of scientific discovery, and in full view of the facts such as are quoted above, is it not surprising that the only thing the representatives of the farmers of New Zealand could think of as being necessary as affecting the present system of public instruction is a modification of the syllabus “that sewing may be taught to girls in all schools”? What a thing to set forth as representing the deliberations of a conference that embodies the interests of over a hundred thousand producers, and whose prospects have been so materially improved by the direct application of science to the preservation and carriage of their products to distant markets.

It will perhaps be urged that the country has adopted a scheme of science instruction for the schools and the people generally. In the year 1882 the great producers of wealth in this country were at their wits' end to find markets for their produce other than wool. Science stepped in and showed them that the preservation of perishable foods was possible. Since then the adoption of scientific methods has so enhanced the value of what were in a large measure waste products that the export of butter, cheese, and frozen meats falls little short in value of the great staple of the country, and has brought in something like £30,000,000 during the twenty years that have gone by since the frozen-meat industry began.

With these facts before us, is it possible to suppose that the farmers do not yet realise the vast possibilities awaiting them if they will adapt themselves and their offspring to the newer conditions that have arisen by the mere introduction of scientific processes in the preservation and transport of perishable foodstuffs? If they are indifferent as to the benefits science is conferring upon them, then let me quote for their edification the words of Locke that he addressed to a certain class of people “that want proofs not because they are out of their reach, but because they will not use them…. Nor,” says this philosopher, “shall I take notice what a shame and confusion it is to the greatest contemners of knowledge to be found ignorant in things they are concerned to know. But this, at least, is worth the consideration of those who call themselves ‘gentlemen’: that, however they may think credit, respect, power, and authority the concomitants

of their birth and fortune, yet they will find all these still carried away from them by men of lower condition who surpass them in knowledge. They who are blind will always be led by those who see, or else fall into the ditch; and he is certainly the most subjected, the most enslaved, who is so in his understanding.”

It has been pointed out that there are two separate and distinct branches of science — viz., natural and applied. Herbert Spencer, in his “First Principles,” when treating of the law of evolution, remarks that at one time science was in union with art, the handmaid of religion, then passing through the era in which the sciences were so few and rudimentary as to be simultaneously cultivated by the same philosophers, and ending with the era in which the genera and species are so numerous that few can enumerate them, and no one can adequately grasp even one genus.

Here, then, we are brought face to face with the inquiry that if the genera and species of the sciences are so numerous, how can a scheme of public education deal with a subject so vast and so various in its aspects and ramifications? The Manual and Technical Instruction Act that was passed in October, 1900, is made to form a “part of, and be read together with, ‘The Education Act, 1877.’” On paper it would seem that New Zealand has a scheme of public education that provides for the primary and the manual and technical instruction and training of the children in the public schools. Admirable in themselves as these forms of instruction appear, they represent what we have been accustomed to so long—the product of inexperience and immature thought. To read the regulations issued under the Manual and Technical Act one would imagine New Zealand to be an old-settled country with an immense urban population engaged in a hard struggle to live, where necessity has driven the authorities to introduce into the primary-school course and into every aspect of school life as many genera and species of science as are recognised in England by the Science and Art Department. We are far from being an industrial community, and of the bread-winners the professional class numbers 23,509; domestic, 34,394; commercial, 39,937; transport and communication, 21,750; agricultural and pastoral, 111,921; whilst the industrial numbers 101,184. Of the professional class 6,026 are returned as ministering to education, but how many of them are capable of giving instruction in science except such as is obtainable from books? The fact is that our legislation on education is fashionable, and presents to the world outside a semblance of progress that facts do not warrant.

Under section 84 of “The Education Act, 1877,” eleven

subjects are enumerated in the standard work for boys and twelve for girls. To these is added military drill for boys and “physical training” for girls. Under “The Manual and Technical Act, 1900,” “school classes” may take in addition, under Regulation 19, a variety of subjects for children below Standard III.; under Regulation 21 Standards III. to IV. may take subjects including “bricklaying” (including the necessary drawing); whilst in the two highest standards subjects may be taken (of so various a character that it would be a difficult matter to say what) including agriculture, chemistry, physics, botany, geology, and physiography, and the wonder is under what conditions the subjects are to be taught. There is a minimum of twenty hours in a school week, and our modern and model scheme of public education deems it possible to teach some of the subjects enumerated in the Manual and Technical Act in addition to the dozen compulsory subjects enumerated in section 84 of the Education Act. In order to foster the introduction of this “special instruction” there has been added to our “free system” of education a capitation system of payment, by which I suppose it is thought that the “special classes” under the Act of 1900 will make headway somehow in the school course.

I do not think any one will be found to suggest that I am not anxious to see everything done for the benefit of our children, so as to prepare them for the time when they will be called upon to play their parts in this world of action, of competition, and enterprise. My anxiety is that the best efforts of parents, of teachers, and of educationists generally should be directed to the proper upbringing of the children for the fulfilment of duty, whether it be as a citizen, as a merchant, a manufacturer, a workman, or even as a politician. Now, the question is, Does the Manual and Technical Act, in combination with the Education Act of 1877, aim to do this?

In the year 1889 a Technical Instruction Act was passed in England. Section 8 of that Act defines “technical instruction” to be “instruction in the principles of science and art applicable to industries, and in the application of special branches of science and art to specific industries or employments,” and the expression “manual instruction” is defined as “instruction in the use of tools, processes of agriculture, and modelling in clay, wood, or other material.” The definitions used in our Manual and Technical Instruction Act are evidently taken from the English Act, except that in the interpretation of the term “manual instruction” the words “such exercises as shall train the hand in conjunction with the eye and brain” have been added, much to the weakness of the definition, for it would be difficult to conceive the hand

being trained without the aid of the brain acting through one of the senses.

A Commission appointed by the legislature of Pennsylvania to inquire into the subject of scientific education, has defined “technical instruction” to be “the teaching of science with specific reference to its industrial application, and, as a term, is almost universally applied to the higher ranges of such instruction”; and manual training is thus dealt with: “‘Manual training’ in the strict sense of the term would mean simply the training of the hand, but as currently used with reference to education the words indicate such employment of the hand as will at the same time train the eye(?) to accuracy and the mind to attention. The scientific element, or the teaching of science pure and simple, is not necessarily involved in-the expression. As, however, pure science can scarcely be taught without looking some-what towards its applications, so manual training cannot be made an effective educational process except by constant reference to the broad foundations in the mathematical, physical, and natural sciences upon which it rests.” I might easily add to these definitions to show how really uncertain we are even now as educationists as to what we mean by the terms “technical instruction” and “manual training.” I confess that my definition of either form of instruction would not agree with what is accepted in England.

But the fact is we are in the hands of the Philistines. It has become fashionable to change and add ornaments(?) to our system of education, and, without considering what is really necessary to place our system on a foundation of its own, adapted and adaptable to modifying conditions of environment, we have taken our cue from the Motherland, where conditions are very unlike our own. Let any one take up the English blue-book, such as is issued by the Board of Education in London, and there will be no doubt as to what is intended by the syllabuses of instruction that may be taken and taught in the night schools, the continuation schools, and the upper or secondary schools of that country. England is supremely an industrial country. She is sustained by her manufacturing superiority; but competition is so keen, internal and external alike, that every circumstance that adds to the utilisation at an earlier period of the youthful material as it comes from the schools, and everything that can be done to help motherhood in nursing her offspring so that she may toil in the factory, and in assisting young men and women to become more skilful in their industrial work, is done by the State. To England industrial skill, manipulative and scientific, is everything. It means work, bread, comfort, success, power,

and influence. It means the supremacy of England in directing the trade, and in a large measure the government, of the world.

And observe what effect this trending of education to competitive necessity is having on the upbringing of young children: “Half-time scholars should not be subjected to any system of exercise or drill which, if practised in the morning, might render them unfit for their afternoon's labour, or, if practised in the afternoon, might press heavily upon a tired boy or girl.” These words are quoted from the “Revised Instructions” of the English code of 1899, page 659, with reference to physical exercises, and they suffice to show what so-called primary education is becoming in England as interpreted in the public-school system of that country. The schools are already little less than preparatory workshops to meet the stress of industrial competition, and an “instruction” such as is here quoted shows the tendency of the so-called technical and manual form of instruction in countries where competition is a case of life and death.

But are we in this country called upon to adopt a similar scheme of training for the children of our public schools? It has already been explained that environment is an important factor in the education of the people, and that our needs and our ways of living, and even our national aspirations, differ from the ways and needs and aspirations of people who live in other lands. It may be that the course of instruction adopted in the public schools of England and Germany is best suited for the present needs of those countries, but is it to be said that what is good for England and Germany is therefore good for us? The case of the boys and the frogs as told by Æsop should give us the answer.

What, then, are we in this country to do if we may not accept the schemes of education such as other Governments have adopted for the benefit of their people? The answer is an easy one. We must provide a scheme adaptive and adaptable to our own ever-varying conditions, where the law of evolution will operate and education will be modified to meet environment as presented in the unlike conditions that now exist in the colony. We must foster a knowledge of natural science among the teachers so far as relates to local and even colonial environment, and we must have teachers prepared as teachers in anticipation of the profession they are to follow. Our country sadly lacks teaching experience and skill, and the two training institutions in the South Island are certainly running along on unscientific lines. There is an abundant supply of bookmen who teach the book, the whole book, and nothing but the book, but who are ignorant of the great book of nature,

of which we need so much to encourage the study among children. Mere book knowledge makes a good show to the outside world, which only reads of examination results; but teachers who know nature even as far as their surroundings, and who can interest children not alone in the dead past but in the more important living present, are badly wanted by this country, and they must be obtained if our education is to be anything better than the mere varnish of knowledge. The industries, the scientific progress, the material, and even the social and political status of the country are in the hands of the six thousand or so teachers who are occupied in the noble work of education. Provision must be made for the training of teachers in technical skill apart from mere academic instruction; and this must not be on the antiquated lines of “normal schools,” such as were established in England and elsewhere when provision was first made to prepare teachers suitable for the elementary instruction then deemed sufficient.

Our schools are “national” in the fullest meaning of the word. They are established and maintained by the country, and it is assumed that all the children of the State pass through them. It is essential, therefore, that the best skill obtainable should be found in the public schools, so that the best influences can be brought to bear upon the right upbringing of the coming democracy. The duty of the country is clear upon this point, and the sooner properly equipped technical schools for the training of teachers are established the sooner are we likely to have men and women working in the schools who are able to utilise all the surroundings of the children in the acquisition of knowledge and the utilisation of books. At present our scheme of public instruction lacks coordination and simplification. It has even now become intricate, and the passing of the Manual and Technical Act of 1900, with its recent amendments, has intensified the difficulties.

But how complex already are our ways of providing elementary education for less than a hundred and fifty thousand children and adults in this colony. There is a central Department of Education in Wellington, with many clerks; there are fourteen Education Boards, with secretaries, clerks, architects, and inspectors of schools; there are school committees, truant officers, &c., and all this is for the regulation and training of about a hundred and twenty thousand children! Then, for the secondary schools there are Boards of Governors, with large endowments of lands subject to their control; there are School Commissioners, who manage primary-education reserves and secondary reserves that have not yet been made over to Boards of Governors having charge of high

schools. Then, there are governors of university colleges, technical and art schools; and, finally, there is the University, administered by a Senate—but all, from start to finish, being maintained out of public endowments of land or by means of special grants out of the Consolidated Fund. It would be an interesting inquiry as to the cost of providing the machinery for the education of a mere handful of children; and yet how much could be saved by effective organization and a better grasp of the principles that should regulate the administrative work of this great and vital question of public education.

Much could be said in favour of the independence of control which is such a characteristic of the secondary and higher education of the country; but to be consistent the plan should be widened so as to embrace the primary schools. Then it would be possible to lay the foundation of an adaptive scheme of public education in the colony. At present adaptation is impossible. It cannot even be encouraged, for the standards of education that operate in the primary schools make it a matter of impossibility for the children to take up work outside the regulations, and every pupil must pass through the same “eye of the needle,” known as the Sixth Standard course. Were such a change made there would still be a regulating central authority; but this authority, whilst it supervised and fostered all forms of education from the cradle to the university, should allow free play along lines adapted to the industrial, the commercial, and the agricultural necessities of districts. The same right of taking the initiative should belong to every district, subject always to the supervising control of the central authority, whose inspectors should be men not merely of school-book attainments, but capable of determining the quality of education in its bearing upon the training of pupils in all those qualities that make for morality, manliness, refinement, and national prosperity.

Under a scheme such as is here outlined there would be no need for standards of instruction like those now in operation. Beyond the study of arithmetic, drawing, and English, including reading, writing, and composition, each school district would have the right to recommend for approval a course of instruction that in the opinion of the people would best meet the wants of the people. Special and school classes would disappear, for the work selected would be the best suited to the requirements of a district. As for science, pure or applied, the latter would be left, as it ought to be left, to the time when pupils quit the lower schools; but natural science would form, as it ought to form, the groundwork of all early training and education. The study of natural phenomena,

the quickening of observation, the collecting of facts, and the constant reference to the “why” in the cultivation of the faculties of the children, ought to form the very groundwork of all the earlier training in the schools. Minds led along the paths such as nature designed for them will pursue the study of natural science as a pleasing recreation if only teachers themselves lead the way. The clouds in the sky, the phenomena of rain, hail, snow, wind, thunder, lightning, heat, cold, and a hundred similar things, provide a field of training such as no books can supply. Air, earth, water, animal and vegetable life provide facts that are available for all forms of science and all departments of discovery and invention; yet these, though so full of sermons to young minds, are passed by for the purpose of acquainting children with statements made in books, which in too many cases teachers and pupils have no means of proving or disproving.

The training in natural science such as is suggested here gives power to children. They are early led to see and to think for themselves, and if teachers paid more attention in the schools to this aspect of learning, school life would be rid of half its difficulties, and progress would be more real because more permanent and capable of producing means of instruction and enjoyment. Professor Huxley once said, “I would not turn my hand over to have biology taught in every school in the land if the subject is to be taught through books only”; and it appears to me that no one should be placed in charge of a public school who is unable to train children by the direct exercise of their perceptive faculties. Observation represents experience. It deals with realities, trains the judgment, encourages work, and provides a means of daily pleasure to children by placing in their hands the means to discover new facts. Thus natural science becomes the stepping-stone to the utilities in experimental science in all that pertains to industrial and economic conditions.

It will be noticed from these observations that science begins, or should begin, in the infant schools, and it should be continued in an ever-widening circle throughout the primary or lower school course. A degree of specialisation could then be introduced; but under no circumstances should science as applied to the arts and industries be made to form a part of the instruction to be given in a public school. Intelligent children, trained to observe and to express their thoughts, are capable of pursuing an advanced course of instruction such as will fit them to pursue with success such forms of industrial life as are found in this country. New Zealand, as remarked above, is not a manufacturing country, and it is manifestly improper for children to undergo a preparation for a form of industry not carried