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in the museum. The open doorway having been found very detrimental to the collections and to the comfort of visitors, by allowing wind and dust to penetrate through the building, the turnstile has been removed, and in its place an inside porch with folding doors has been erected. The Canterbury Society of Arts asked to be allowed to deposit their pictures in the gallery, and leave has been given them, with the understanding that no responsibility will be incurred by the museum. School op Art. The attendance during the past year has been smaller than the previous one, being 393, against 515, but the reason of this is that civil and mechanical engineering are no longer taught at the school. Two lecturers on these subjects have been appointed at the college, and the students who formerly attended the school of art now go to the college instead. Another reason for the decrease in numbers is, that the Board of Education, owing to scarcity of funds, had to cease sending their students; but there is every reason to believe that this is only a temporary measure, and that before long some modified arrangement for continuing the teaching will be made. The numbers attending the morning classes for the last three terms have been as follows : Twelve, twenty, and twenty-four ; and for the evening classes seventy-three, seventy-eight, and sixty-three. The last session of the latter class, both as regards attendance and work done, has been the most successful since the establishment of the school. The draped life class has been carried on as usual with a slightly increased attendance, and a competition amongst the students drawing from the cast, for entrance into the life class, is held at the beginning of each term. The nude life class was commenced early in 1887, and for the present is held twice a week. At the Dunedin Exhibition two silver medals, the only prizes offered by the Otago Art Society, were won last year by two of the students for a head from life, in chalk, and a figure from the antique, also in chalk. Over thirty drawings and paintings of the students, illustrating all branches of instruction, have been sent to the Melbourne Exhibition. The annual School Exhibition was held last February, when a selection of students' works done during the last year was shown. Amongst the branches represented were figure-drawing from life and antique, modelling, book illustration design, mechanical, building con-struction,-and-architectural drawing, sketches from nature, and all elementary work. The number of boys of the high school receiving instruction during the past year was ninety-two. Freehand, model, and geometry have been taught to this class for seven hours every week. The annual examination of the school of art was held as usual in December, and the following passed: In freehand, 84 ; model, 42 ; geometry, 31; perspective, 5. Public Libbaby. Since the last annual meeting the buildings have been put in thorough repair. The whole of the wooden portion has been roofed with iron, the outside painted, and the interior cleaned, repaired, and distempered. The doors, windows, and woodwork of the brick building have also been repaired and painted. Several sets of well-known popular authors have been procured from England for the circulating department, to replace those taken off the shelves because they were too old and dilapidated to issue ; and 727 volumes of general literature have been added by monthly purchases from local booksellers. Additions have also been made to the number of magazines taken in, as this appears to bo the most popular literature in the library, and very largely read by all the subscribers. A new catalogue of the circulating library has been published. This will supply a want long felt, as the one heretofore in use was very old, and did not contain more than two-thirds of the books in the library. About 160 volumes have been added to the reference department, being principally books wanted to complete works already on the shelves, as well as the calendars, lists, directories, reports, &c, for the year 1887-88, as these are in daily request for reference by all classes of people. Nothing will better show that the efforts of the Committee are being appreciated, and that the library is getting more popular, than the increase in the number of subscribers, which have now reached to 1,030, a large addition to that of former years. The number of volumes at present in the library is as follows: Eeference department, 7,582 ; circulating department, 10,674: making a total of 18,256 ; the number of periodicals taken in being 68, English newspapers 8, American 1, New Zealand 47, and Australian 4. School of Agbicultuee. During the past year, with a view of making the school more widely known, copies of the prospectus have been sent to the Agent-General, in hopes that young men who intended emigrating, seeing the cheapness and thoroughness of the education given here, would be induced to come out and go through a training in colonial agriculture at Lincoln, instead of learning farming in England. Every endeavour has been made to make the advantages offered by the school more widely known. The whole fees for each student, including board and lodging, is only £65 per annum, and is about half the cost of that charged by similar institutions in England. Besides this, the steamer fares of resident students are paid between the nearest port to their homes in New Zealand and Lyttelton, so that the advantages of the school are not confined to Canterbury, but open alike to all in New Zealand. This must show that the small attendance (about twenty-one) is simply the result of the general depression felt by all in the colony, especially by farmers, who can only obtain a very poor price for their produce, and who cannot afford to pay for their sons' tuition at an age when they begin to be of use on the farm. Eour students have during the year gained the final certificate. The • yield of grain last harvest was 8,000 bushels. The average yield of wheat was 40 bushels ;of oats, 40 ; and barley, 37-|- bushels. The number of live stock on the farm is about the average —the turnip crop turning out very well. The income from both grain and stock will be considerably in excess of that for last year. A special committee was appointed to thoroughly consider the working of the institution, who held several meetings and reported to the Board. Many of the suggestions which were made have been adopted, and it is to be hoped that they will prove beneficial to the institution gene-