E.—ll

46

the society are admitted at 10s. 6d. per annum subscription, and the fee of any class joined especially for the purpose of studying in the classes, such student-members not having the right to exhibit at the annual exhibition or vote at its meetings. A sum of £250 is voted annually by the Government towards the maintenance of the society. Total Expenditure of Institutions dealt with. Drawing-schools, including cost of examinations, about £500; Technical Board, £16,971 15s 7d.; Technological Museum, £3,700; Art-gallery, £6,143 os. 9d.; Art Society, £250 : total, £27,564 16s. 4d.

APPENDIX. The following are attached as being of interest upon the subject of this report: (a.) Extract from the report of the Department of Public Instruction, New South Wales, 1887. (b.) From the report on technical education by Edward Combes, C.M.G., New South Wales Legislative Assembly, 1887. (1.) Law relating to the organization and management of practical schools of agriculture and farm-schools in France. (2.) Mr. Pearce's report on the system of art-teaching in the Kunstgewerbe Museum and Schule and Kunst Schule. (3.) " Uses, Objects, and Methods of Technical Education in Elementary Schools," by Henry H. Cunynghame. . (4.) " Sloyd, or Handwork, as a Factor in Education," by Evelyn Chapman. Extract from the Eepoht of the Department of Public Instruction, New South Wales, 1887. The term " technical education " in its fullest meaning denotes the special education and training requisite to enable a person to rightly and thoroughly learn the theory and practice of any art, science, or profession ; but, in organizing and carrying out a State system of such education so that it may quickly be of the most advantage to the great majority of the working population of a country, the subjects and teaching introduced in its initiatory and early stages should chiefly be those pertaining specially to agriculture and to the useful and mechanical arts practised by tradesmen. Moreover, it appears to me that any State system of education for this colony should be carried on as a branch of the Department of Public Instruction under direct Ministerial control. This could be done by appointing for its organization and management a staff of educational experts, selected, most probably, in the first place from among the paid officers of the department, such staff to include a Chief Organizer. With the Minister's approval this staff might be required to perforin the following duties: To take cognisance of, and extend where practicable, the preliminary technical work done in elementary day-schools, such as kindergarten, science-lessons, drawing, commercial education, needlework, cookery, &c.; to organize evening schools for technical education in advance of that imparted in day-schools ; to arrange for the establishment of model-farms in suitable agricultural districts, and of workshops for manual training in connection with the large public schools of Classes 1., lE, and III.; to provide for systematic courses of lectures on industrial and scientific subjects being delivered in Sydney and the principal country centres; to see that the technical instruction in the training-colleges for teachers includes lectures and teaching such as would qualify future masters and mistresses for that part of their primary-school work; and to organize, when necessary, secondary or high schools for the advanced scientific and technical teaching necessary to prepare students for a polytechnic or a technical college in connection with the University. Organized and managed in this way, technical education would be fully recognised as an essential part of our public-school system ; it would be effectually and economically administered under the direct control of the Minister of Public Instruction, existing public-school buildings being to a large extent utilised for the work ; and the teaching would be systematically carried on from the infant-school or kindergarten to the secondary or high schools of a special character, which would prepare pupils for entering upon such an advanced stage of their work as should properly be taken up by the University. The following is an outline of what is now being done in technical education in the principal European countries and America : — In France. —Technical education is'provided for by special and technical schools (including evening and Sunday schools and classes for adults and children of both sexes), and by lectures instituted expressly for the promotion of industrial and scientific knowledge. Special pains are taken to develop the manual genius of the artisan classes by blending industrial theory and practice in the primary-school course of study, by evening, Sunday, apprentice, and continuation schools and classes ; by science-and-art schools for adults and others ; and by lectures of all kinds. The eveningschool system is one of the most striking features in the organization. In Germany. —lt is provided for by supplementary or continuation schools (Fortbildiingsschulen), held in the evenings and on Sunday mornings, for extending the knowledge of apprentices after leaving school; by modern schools (Eealschulen) preparatory for the upper modern schools (Ober Eealschulen), especially preparatory for entrance into the Polytechnic to continue scientific education; and by polytechnic schools or technical universities. There are also apprenticeschools. Drawing is universally well taught in the primary schools, but workshops have not yet been added to such schools. In the United States of America. —lt is provided for by aiming in the common schools to give the pupils the great art of receiving and communicating knowledge, and by teaching in such schools drawing and the rudiments of national science; by having high schools with a science division distinct from a Latin or English division ; by devoting great attention to colleges of agriculture and mechanics ; by commencing the blending of mental and manual instruction in primary schools; and by establishing certain free evening, industrial, and drawing schools.