The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-03-31 00:00:00

THE CONFERENCE OF ELEMENTARY
TEACHERS.

On Monday the fourteenth annual conftrence of
the National Union of Elementary Teachers wag
opened in the Lecture Hall of the Newcastle Literary
and Phibsophical Society. Mr. B. Sykes' of the
Board school, Gillespie-road, Highbury Vale, London,
the retiring president, formally opened the conference,
and introduced the president for the year, Mr. C. J.
Dawson, of Manchester. _ _ _

The president then read his inaugural address, in
which he traced the history of national education in
this country from the beginning to the present century
up to the time of the passing of Mr. Forster's Educa-
tion Act in 1870. He said with regard to the present
position of national education in England that there
had been a remarkable increase of the requirements
in elementary instruction, and a remarkable growth
In the number and stringency of examinations. He
went on to say that over-examination and its
natural consequence, over-pressure of the pupils,
were two terrible evils in the existing system that cry
out for resistance and remedy. The examination
craze, we must remember, is not confined to elementary
schools; it is running to excess in other directions,
but it is nowhere more injurious than in ele-
mentary schools, because there it affects a larger
number of Individuals than elsewhere, and it is not
applied to voluntary or selected candidates, as in
the' various competitive examinations. Schools had
a higher purpose than to be examined. The
education which it is the teacher's business to give
is intended for something more important than to
be tested by an inspector. It is to afford means to
create conditions for a fuller, fresher, truer life in its
subjects than is possible without it. Parents complain
of long school hours, long home lessons, and un-
healthy competition. Doctors take up the complaints
and warn us of the evil consequences' and teachers,
while they groan and droop under the burden, persist
that they are powerless to check the evil system.
They need not be powerless, they ought not to be 80,
and they would not be so if every one had the courage
to act on the conviction springing from the exercise of
right reason.
After pointing to several other abuses in the present
system of national education, the President proceeded
to consider the question of the secularisation of elemen-
tary schools. He would not venture to forecast the
early extinction of denominational schools, and gave
it is his opinion that as long as the friends of religious
education continued to manifest their enthusiastic
feeling in favour thereof, and combined with that
an earnest support of secular instruction, there
need be no fear that our day schools would lose
their religious character. With regard to second-
ary or advanced education he urged that a
Secondary Educatiln Act should be passed by
which localities should be required to ascertain the
relation of the supply to the need fur 'secondary
schools, and to roake.good any proved deficiency. He
added—To the question, What local authority should
carry out this scheme? I would say where it is not
done on voluntary principles let it be the work of the
same board as controls elementary schools. Only I would
make this modification—in the county districts where
the needs would be small and the persons suitable and
available for education few, I would have a large ex-
tension of area so as to combine a number of pariehes.
Indeed it might be well to adopt county divisional
boards for the management of districts outside large
towns; and while the measure for local government in
counties is in preparation it may be worth while to
consider whether the county boards it is proposed to
form should not have the local control of education
generally. This would ecure two or three advantages
—first, greater equality of rating for the support of
schools; next, the influence of broader views than can
be expected to prevail in the small boards of rural
parishes; and, third, a combination of greater dB.-
ciency and economy in the work.

The President, in continuing, advocated the fusion
of elementary schools into one complete graded system,
and also the uniting of the different grades of teachers
into one comprehensive profession. The unity of the
profession would involve many changes. The elemen-
tary teacher would have to be more liberally educated.
The possession of a degree is considered no less desir-
able for the clergyman of a small rural parish than
for the rector in an important town. Why should not
a similar idea prevail with regard to teachers? So long
as the present system of training teachers for elemen-
tary schools was in operation it seemed important that
the work of the pupil teachers instead of being a repe-
tition, with fuller details and slight additions of the
work of their standards, should begin where the
standards leave off, and partake of the character of
secondary instruction leading up to an examination
similar to the matriculation of the London University,
though perhaps a little less multifarious in its essential
requirements.
The President was enthusiastically applauded on
the conclusion of his address, and, after some formal
business, including thereading of the annual report, in
which shown that in the past year eighteen new dis-
trict associations had been formed, and that the Union
had very much improved its working machinery, the
conference was adjourned.