Excerpt from Commission on Primary, Secondary, Technical, and Other Branches of Education: Interim Report of the Commissioners on Certain Parts of Primary Education, Containing Summarised Reports, Recommendations, Conclusions, and Extended Report of the Commissioners; With Illustrations, Etc You should make yourselves acquainted with the details of the training of Teachers and Pupil Teachers, and report on the scope of their examinations. You should not divide your work in making inquiries, but both should be present at every visit or inspection, and in your interim or final reports the matters upon which you agree should be signed by both. In cases where you arrive at different conclusions, each should stato his own views above his own signature. After commencing your inquiries, a short fortnightly diary should be posted to the Under Secretary, stating what visits have been made during the period, and at the end of each month a brief interim report on work done should be sent, not for publication, but for the information of the Minister. It is not desirable that you should give lectures or engage in public discussions. It will be left to your own judement, when you are on the spot, to select the places to bo visited; but, speaking broadly, you are not required to visit any country or town whore it is generally recognised that there is little or nothing to bo leared in connection with the objects of your journey. Generally, it is the wish of the Minister that you should report on any matter that you think may be of value to the Department. This may be done in your final comprehensive report. We left Sydney on 12th April, last year - 1902 - and returned on 23rd February of this year, having travelled through the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Bohemia, Austria, Hungary, the United States and Canada, visiting various educational institutions and conferring with distinguished educationists. It is undesirable, in your Commissioners' opinion, to delay certain improvements which your Commissioners recommend for adoption, until sufficient time has elapsed for the preparation of the full report. This report, therefore, does not traverse the whole subject-matter of inquiry, but deals only with certain features of primary education, which appear to your Commissioners to demand attention as early as possible. Summarised Report on Certain Parts of Primary Education. I. General. [C. H. Knibbs And J. W. Turner.] 1. The Scope of the Present Report. - An inquiry into practically all branches of education is necessarily an elaborate task, involving three elements, (1) The subject-matter of education; (2) the organisation of instruction; (3) the administration. It was necessary to consider these three for the following reasons, viz.: - ( ) The subject-matter is not identical in substance, form, or range in different countries; (b) The general plan of instruction differs; and moreover (c) The administrative scheme, by means of which the general plan is made best to serve its object, is very variously organised. These matters are more fully set forth for certain parts of primary education in Chapters I to LVIII of the extended Report. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com"