The position of teachers throughout Victoria is at present most anomalous. Every other great profession is guarded against the competition of uneducated pretenders. No man can practice as a barrister, a solicitor, a doctor, or a chemist, without having given proof of his qualifications. But any person who is disposed may open a school, and undertake to teach what perhaps he has never learned. It cannot be doubted, I think, that this reacts injuriously on the whole status of teachers. The public is apt to suppose that any one who has failed in some other branch of life may fall back upon teaching, and yet, inconsistently, but not unnaturally, attaches an extreme value to certain recognised certificates. The truth, I believe, is that a test of some kind is indispensable. But we can only test knowledge, not teaching power; not because it is impossible to estimate a teacher's efficiency in class-work, but because an attempt to impose some particular system would commit the country to a very dangerous routine. We have a right, I think, to say that no one shall profess to teach English or Greek, arithmetic or algebra, without having given proof that they have studied the subject; just as we have a right to say that a man shall pass a certain examination before he is admitted to the bar. But the way in which he shall impart what he knows is as little matter of definition as the way he shall plead. The public service and the public may be trusted to discover under what teacher the pupil makes most progress; and every examination of a school will, in fact, be a testing and certifying of teachers.

Again, we cannot work the compulsory system without some check upon teachers not in the State service. The examinations I have proposed will detect now and again what children have been neglected, but will not save them from the results of that neglect; and the untrained child of nine relegated to a State school will be a nuisance from which the State teacher ought, if page 72 possible, to be delivered. Considering, therefore, that our present license examination is so easy, it will not, I think, be much to demand that all persons who shall open primary schools after the passing of this Act shall be compelled to show that they have passed the license examination, or an equivalent to it, such as the matriculation examination. From head teachers of high schools we may, I think, demand a B.A. degree of some British University, with reservation of existing rights for all persons now engaged in teaching in the colony, and with some larger latitude in making the first appointments; and after 1879 assistants might be compelled to produce the University certificate of teaching.

The first step to raise the character of teachers will have been taken when this is done. Our next must be to secure that the State teacher gets a better education than any other, and reaps the reward of his education throughout his professional career. I advocate the connection of the Training College with the University, not only because it will reduce the cost of education to the State, not only because the heads of the department and of the profession desire it, but because I think it of incalculable importance that the men and women who are to train our youth should themselves fall at the time when impressions are deepest under the influence of the most eminent teachers in the colony.

I have often been urged to recommend the establishment of a chair of Pædagogy. If Pædagogy means class-teaching, the Superintendent of the Training College is already such a professor. If it means a knowledge of the ways in which different subjects can be adequately taught, I am sure it will be better learned from many teachers than from one; however excellent. There is no single method of instruction: the lecturer, the class-teacher, and the private tutor are each different in their way; and an excellent teacher of language may be worthless in history. So long as the University fairly represents the highest intelligence that can be attracted into the department of teaching, so long will it be the best place in which teaching can be learned.

It may be asked whether the two years' course I propose for future trainees, a year before matriculation and a year afterwards, is not longer than they require; whether the simple education to which I propose to confine primary schools cannot be taught without a knowledge of French or physical geography. In reply, I would say that the present course occupies two years, and embraces nominally more subjects than the University demands. But as our first-year students are now taught in different places on different systems, and come up with every variety of preparation to a badly officered^* Training College, their time is more or less wasted. Then I would ask what subject out of the University first-year course in Arts a student ought to dispense with? Not Euclid or algebra, for he may be required to teach these in an upper sixth. Not French or Latin, for without some knowledge of another language than his own the teacher cannot page 73 explain English thoroughly. Scarcely even chemistry or botany, if we do not wish the possible head of a school of six hundred to be inferior in attainments to his own pupils after a year at a high school. Let it be borne in mind that we want the teacher of a primary school to be respected as a man of fair education throughout the colony. Above all, we wish him to keep the higher prizes of the profession steadily in sight, and to train, if he can spare the time and energy, for the University, so as to qualify himself for the mastership of a high school or an inspectorship.

To secure this last aim, it is indispensable that the prizes of the profession be awarded by recognised rules. I do not mean that the heads of the department should be debarred from a certain liberty of selection among qualified men, but that only men with the highest qualifications should be capable of the highest preferment. By the highest qualifications I mean the possession of the highest certificate, and a certain percentage of results at inspector's examinations. When the profession is brought under fixed rules such as these, it will be possible, I think, to insist on stricter obedience to orders from the department than is enforced at present. All, of every qualification, ought to take their turn of country work without murmuring, when the fear that being out of sight they will be out of mind is removed by the knowledge that their certificates will always count in their favour.

Those who look at the large cost of our educational system, and at the salaries paid to teachers in other countries, are apt to think that the incomes given in our State schools are excessive. I am not prepared to say that the system of giving extra payments for classes in special subjects, for drill, and for singing, has not sometimes led to results which may be called excessive, because they are disproportionate to what other members of the profession gain. But after the deduction of these anomalous incomes, which the changes I propose will make impossible for the future, the average income of our best paid head teachers is about £450, and the scheme appended to this report makes £500 a possible maximum, and £450 an income that will be often or nearly reached.^* At present the question is one of competition. New Zealand pays as much as £500 in exceptional cases. South Australia has lately advertised, guaranteeing a first year's income in four small towns at £450. When we bear in mind that the foreman of a large shop earns from £500 to £800 a year, that our teachers are forbidden to eke out their incomes by trade^† or speculation and are expected to maintain a certain position, I do not think this income can be called excessive. As a rule the State's worst bargains are not those who earn most, but those who, being only partially qualified, earn least, and I believe one of the best practical reforms will be to turn a good many schools page 74 into half-time schools, with one good and well-paid teacher to two, instead of a bad and cheap teacher to each.

One great and just source of teachers' dissatisfaction with their present status is undoubtedly to be found in the way in which their income by results is assessed. When the disturbing elements of average age and attendance cease to enter into the calculation of these, as I propose they should, the just causes of complaint will have been removed. I do not think it possible to remove all. Unless we assume that it is as easy to manage a large as a small school, we must classify schools by the numbers of their pupils, and graduate our salaries in proportion; and thus the teacher with an attendance of 500 will be better paid than the teacher with an attendance of 499. As, however, every child who satisfies the law will count as an attendance, and as the State will do all it can to run up the numbers at the school, the teacher will certainly gain by the changes I propose, and several schools on the boundary line will be moved up into a higher class. In determining the results of the teacher's work, the inspector will no doubt retain very great power, even though the proportion of salary dependent upon results has already been reduced from a third to a sixth. This I regard as unavoidable; inspection is the pivot on which our whole system turns. But such changes as I have proposed will, I think, have the effect of making the issue for the teacher simpler and broader. I propose that more weight should be attached to intelligent teaching; that the test of class-work should be the good training of the greater number, without deductions for a few backward individuals; that the examination should be rather longer than at present; and that the paper-work corrected by the teacher and marked by an examiner should be forwarded in a sealed envelope to the department, should the teacher desire to lodge an appeal with the inspector-general.

It is not, I hope, out of place to protest here against the imperfect estimate which I have often heard expressed of a schoolmaster's work. Men look at the time-table, and assess it at five hours a day, which they contrast with their own long hours behind the counter or the plough. But no teacher who hopes to make his mark works as little as five hours. Many head teachers compute the work they do in school alone at eight hours in the day; and an examination of their books has convinced me that they do not overstate their case. Hitherto they have had to train separately pupil-teachers, students of the Training College, and students preparing for the civil service or for matriculation, and though we shall relieve them of some of this and simplify what remains, it will scarcely be possible to reduce the time they employ. page 75 They have, in addition, to watch their assistants at their work, and train them where they are deficient; to keep registers and time-tables; and above all to keep up their reading at home; to be better instructed than the young teachers whom the department sends out to them. The profession which demands all this from them demands also that they should maintain a buoyant vitality and an equable temper; should never be listless or harassed; impatient with slow pupils or harsh to the vivacious.

The question of punishments in schools has, I hope, been settled by the late circular, which restricts the right of the cane to the head master or to a deputy nominated by him and approved by the department. So little has this circular tied the hands of willing schoolmasters, that I have found a school where ten boys have been caned in a day, and another not very large one where twenty-two suffered in a week. There is, however, a difficulty in some cases which the mere license to cane does not remove. A female head teacher in a country school cannot always deal with the sturdy elder boys who are her worst pupils—boys of 13 and 14. I believe almost all trouble from this cause will be removed, when the Act is enforced, so that only studious children need to be kept at school after 12. Meantime, I think the teacher should be empowered to call in the truant-officer of the district or the head of police, and hand over culprits to him for corporal punishment. Practically the mere knowledge that the teacher can do this will preclude the necessity for the application in almost every case.

The last and most vital question touching the position of teachers is their claim to know exactly how they stand in the service. At present, the district inspector enters his opinion of the school in an inspector's book, and writes up a private report, which may differ considerably in wording and even in general effect, to the department. The department keeps and refers to the private, not the public reports; and thus it occasionally happens that a teacher is moved or censured or refused the preferment he would naturally have, while he has always, as he believes, been well reported on. I do not know that it is possible or desirable altogether to do away with private reports. An inspector, suspecting delinquency of some kind (such as inaccurate entries), is bound to communicate his suspicions, that they may be kept on record for his successor's information, or their accuracy tested without delay by the department. So again, there is a certain general impression of character, favourable or unfavourable, which an inspector carries away from every school; and which he may fairly reserve for the information of his superiors. But it is of far higher importance that the whole service should think itself fairly dealt with, than that a perfect system of surveillance should be maintained. I think, therefore, that in the three cases I have instanced—where a man is suddenly transferred without explanation to a less desirable appointment, or where he is not allowed to retain his own school, which has become more valuable, or where he is censured—he should be allowed to demand a court of enquiry, composed of two inspectors and two head teachers, and presided over by some person named page 76 for that purpose, together with the other four members, by the Minister. Such a court should sit in Melbourne, and should not hear counsel, and its decision should be final.

Having examined at length several cases of alleged ill-treatment by the department, I can testify that in general the complaints made have been preposterous or grotesque. But I cannot say that there have not been some cases of real grievance; and these, it must be remembered, will commonly happen with good teachers whose professional chances are so valuable that they submit to wrong rather than complain. Be the complaints urgent or trivial, however, it is far better they should be disposed of at once than allowed to rankle and become stock for political agitation. I have met one man at least whose brain had evidently been impaired by brooding over a grievance which a court of enquiry would have disposed of in a day's sitting.

In treating of the Training College I have spoken of some means by which the department may encourage a healthy esprit de corps among the teachers of the colony. But administration, however excellent, can do little until the principle of promotion by merit, and by merit only, is thoroughly established. Only when the teacher knows that he can rise by honest work to the bâton de maréchal will he feel proud of his service, and proud of the comrades with whom he is working, and against whom he is contending in fair rivalry.