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more time is required, I would prefer that the writing lesson were omitted on one day of the week, There is another evil tendency which requires to be guarded against —that is, the tendency to give dictation to children in the Second Standard. This is a very effectual way to teach them to spell badly. Even. in the Third Standard dictation should be used with great caution. There is some improvement in the teaching of geography, but it is still very inadequately taught. I am sometimes astonished at the ignorance of this most interesting subject shown by senior classes. Ample instructions how to teach it are given in the standards and in the Board's instructions. Composition is, on the whole, very fairly taught. There still lingers, however, too much of a tendency to have recourse to reproduction in some one or other of its various disguises. The art of oral composition comes by nature, much as the art of walking does. In training to written composition we should be guided by Nature's teaching. When stilts produce ease in walking the wooden appliances so frequently pressed on our notice will no doubt produce ease in writing. I have been of late pointing out to teachers that muph of the work of the higher standards can be anticipated in the lower. This can be done not only without injury to the ordinary work, but to its advantage, by awakening the intelligence of the pupils. The knowledge which children acquire out of school is to be used as a foundation. Most children have seen a penny, and most children know that they will get twelve pence as change for a shilling, and that sixpence is half a shilling. On this foundation, and with the help of twenty-four halfpence, an intelligent teacher can convey to children some useful knowledge in simple fractions, to their great delight. He can do the same with a pound sterling by the help of twenty shillings, and a crown and half a crown. If he has not the coins he can imitate them on the blackboard, or indicate them by means of the ball-frame. The mystery of the aliquot parts of a pound and of a shilling can be pleasantly revealed in this way. It can be revealed in another way to those who are learning the simple rules. They can be made to see, for instance, how many sums of twenty pence, thirty pence, or the like go to make up two hundred and forty pence. Children should be reminded that they come to school mainly to acquire good habits; that one of these habits is that of investigation, or " the finding out about the things they speak of and hear of." In any school most of the pupils will have often heard of a ton ; but it will be found that but few have taken trouble to find out anything about it. Some will know that it is about the weight a good horse can draw in a dray, or 20 cwt. It should then be pointed out that it is of no use to talk about hundredweights unless thev know what a hundredweight is. Some will know that it contains 1121b. Then an effort should be made to get them to a tolerably clear though rough objective knowledge of what a pound is. Sixteen ounces won't help them much to this. Some, again, will know that a stone of ordinary density, about the size of their clenched fist, will represent a pound. They can be easily led to see that a heap of 112 of these stones will represent a hundredweight, that twenty such heaps will represent a ton, or will contain 2,240 lb.: all this by the simple rules. As regards miles, children will tell you that they live a mile or more or less than a mile from the school, but they have seldom taken the trouble to make out what a mile is. This they can be easily interested in doing, and can be brought from the miles to the chains, the yard, the foot, and the inch, the latter being brought home to them, not by " twelve lines," but by three barleycorns, or by the upper joints of their thumb or forefinger ; thus again having a concrete foundation instead of building on air. As regards acres, you will perhaps be readily told that there are ten square chains in an acre, but you will often find that very little meaning is attached to this expression ; yet simple mensuration is a thing in which very young children take much delight. They will tell you, for instance, that three fives are fifteen, and they delight in verifying this bv counting the squares in an oblong, assumed to be three chains, or yards, or feet broad, by five long. I find that in very many cases indeed there is anything but a clear apprehension of the distinction between, say, square yards and yards square and the like (a haziness not unknown to pupii-teachers) : this certainly ought not to be. Teachers should encourage their pupils to make chains of flax or other material, and to amuse themselves by measuring distances and areas. In dealing with coins, weights, and measures it is best to begin with the high denomination, the pound, the shilling, the ton, the mile, the acre, and analyse them. This is the true and natural method. The methods of teaching geography and grammar to young children have been dealt with in the Instructions for the guidance of teachers. I would here point out that it is of inestimable value to children to be taught to use their own eyes, to learn—what we all want to learn —to see the things before the eyes. They should be trained to find out and name the objects in (he room, and further trained to form some opinion on those objects, to consider whether they think them good or bad, pretty or ugly, and the like. If during the process they pick up something about nouns or adjectives it will not do them any harm, nor indeed does it very much matter. The practice of gymnastics has been extended to many schools during the past year. Much benefit is arising from it. I find, however, that many who need the practice most often seek to shirk it. This arises from the mistaken idea that gymnastics cause too great a strain on the frame, and are weakening. The contrary is the fact. A course of gymnastics is often the best thing to strengthen a weakly frame. In Hinton's " Physiology for Practical Use" the author says, "We would strongly urge on parents, especially on those whose children are somewhat weakly, the necessity of physical education. Children who have no desire for the sports of their time of life ought not to be encouraged in their sedentary habits without some counterbalancing means of exercise." I append the Instructor's report for last year. It is very desirable that every school should have a library. Unless a taste for reading is acquired at school many of the country pupils will eventually lose ail they have learned. The good and the gain of a taste for reading have been told by many eloquent tongues. One often remembers, contemplating the many young people here whir show no vestige of this taste, " What a dreary old age you are preparing for yourselves ! " I must again express my strong disapproval of the large amount of home work given in many cases. Year by year the weight of enlightened authority becomes greater against this stupid, mischievous practice. I do not think the holidays given here are excessive, taking into account the nature of the climate and other circumstances. If the teachers' examination were not held in January it might be possible