This "sawdust" style of teaching with the object of " hoodwinking " the inspector, and o£ presenting him with the answers to the questions he is most likely to ask, must, to judge from the tone of the report, be very prevalent in this provincial district. Mr Petrie very justly condemns the method, and, as we think, very judiciously points out a way of reform. His remarks on the way in which the reading lesson is taught in schools are exceedingly just, and his suggestions for improving this part of the school work are very well put: though we take leave to doubt whether the result for any schoolmaster who should follow the various excellent suggestions of the inspector would not be a fall in the percentage of passes. The adoption of the double-reader system and the less determined gorging of the pupils with the meanings of words and phrases would be a move in the right direction. Teachers are no doubt led to a too minute treatment of the verbal details of a lesson by the de sire to arm their pupils at all points-to resist the attacks of the enemy. It seems to us, however, that an effective cure of this evil would lie in the inspectors asking for an explana tion of the words and phrases of a passage-not chosen from the Header in use by the class. It is at any rate much to be desired that some method of inspection should be found which would secure that the best way to prepare pupils for the inspector's exami nation should be to educate and not to prime them.
