Page:Transactions NZ Institute Volume 9 Supplement.djvu/59

Rh that, were it not for the circumstances of the colony, must be (for such a prize) considered ridiculously easy. This examination is the only one in which science is one of the subjects for which junior students compete, science being absolutely ignored in all others. The Canterbury Provincial Scholarships are divided into four grades, with about six subjects in each grade, in none of which is science of any value to the competitor. For pupil teachers there are four progressive examinations, with no science; there is an examination for assistant teachers with no science; and the examinations for masters have science as a voluntary subject only in the first and second classes; and, since the establishment of these examinations, none have passed in Chemistry, and only about 20 papers in science have been worked, and these mostly only of a popular character. It is not a subject examined by the Inspectors of Schools, nor is it among the subjects mentioned in the Sixth Standard, or in the new scheme of the General Government. There is, consequently, no inducement for its teaching in elementary schools, neither to scholars, pupil-teachers, or assistant masters, and, therefore, scientific attainments in a teacher are of no value in obtaining an appointment. In point of fact, it seems to be the reverse. A teacher, who had some scientific attainments, remarked that the Committees appeared to think that as he had wasted so much time in science, he could scarcely be a good scholar in other ways. I am often told by masters that both the bent of their minds and their inclinations were for science, but that it did not pay, and they were therefore working at those studies which were better appreciated. This fact lessens considerably the usefulness of the Science Classes of the College. I will take one case as an instance. I established a class in Chemistry expressly for schoolmasters. Some fourteen joined, and attended a few times. I wished them to bring notes of the lectures. This was not done. I again expressed more forcibly the uselessness of merely looking at the experiments and not supplementing that by private study. The result was that only four came next time, and so on till the end of the course. In all my classes it is the same; I can only administer the smallest modicum of science at a time, or it is not assimilated. As with the masters, so with the pupils. All the more intelligent are working with a view to passing some of the examinations mentioned above, so that they dare not go aside from their regular course to take science—it is so much waste of time to the object for which they are working. In the University examinations there are the same influences at work. The degree of B.A. may be obtained, and, unless there are some alterations, will generally be obtained, without the competitors knowing anything of the forces at work controlling the universe in which they live, or of the materials of which it is composed, and yet the holder of the degree