A Letter to a Friend on the Standards of the New Code of the Education Department Classic Reprint

Excerpt from A Letter to a Friend on the Standards of the New Code of the Education Department

Mr. Fussell, who knew what the best schools were under the Minutes of 1846, says in his Report for 1870, So far as my district at least is concerned, the methods of teaching all three subjects (reading, writing, and arithmetic) are on the average decidedly inferior to those commonly used in it before the introduction of the Revised Code.2 Mr. Stewart, with a simi lar experience extending over a longer period, says in his last Report, Teaching in its highest sense is almost extinct, and Teachers seem inclined to think that their responsibility is now limited to training children to pass the Examinations prescribed in the New Code.3 Mr. Campbell evidently sighs for the good Old times, and for the papers which he used to get before the Revised Code extinguished them. With regard to what are called extra subjects, I could say a good deal. In the first place, the name is in my opinion a mistake. Such subjects as geography, grammar, and history, ought never to have been placed without the usual programme of Elementary Schools. Those who can remember the excellent papers which were worked by the scholars in a large majority of schools on these subjects many years ago, before payment by results and indivi dual examination were the order of the day, will agree with me when I say that the cutting them out of the time - table has had a most injurious effect upon the intelligence of both Teachers and scholars, and has caused very little improvement in the teaching of the three mechanical subjects of reading, writing, Report of Education Department, 1868 - 69, p. 131. 2 Ibid. 1870 - 71, p. 83. 3 Ibid. 1872 - 73, p. 155.

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