E.—s

APPENDIX.

MANUAL AND TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION IN THE SEVERAL EDUCATION DISTRICTS. AUCKLAND. Extract from the Report of the Education Board. Manual and Technical Instruction.— During the year the erection of the Seddon Memorial Technical College was proceeded with. According to the contract the building should have been completed in November last. At the present time (March) it appears that the College is not likely to be ready for opening for at least three months. The number of individual students in attendance at the College last year was 1,357 ; and when the first portion of the College, now in course of erection, is completed, the accommodation will not be sufficient for this number of students without continuing the use of some other temporary buildings. During the year Manual-training Schools were erected at Cambridge and Hamilton, and these will shortly be opened. Handwork was taught in 164 public schools, agriculture in 73, swimming in 17, and sewing in 62 schools below Grade IV taught by a male teacher. The Board has now under consideration a scheme for the establishment of an Associated Board of Managers to control and direct the work of technical education in Auckland. Extract from the Report of the Inspectors of Schools. Rural Instruction. —Realizing the importance of this phase of education in a land whose prosperity depends so largely on its agricultural and pastoral interests, we welcome the effort which is now being made to carry on in our district high schools instruction in elementary agriculture and in other subjects of manual training begun in the primary school. A considerable leakage takes place as pupils pass through the schools, and of those who reach Standard VI and obtain certificates of proficiency barely 40 per cent, continue their education further. All this is much to be regretted, so that any modification of curriculum likely to arrest the waste of the State's most precious raw material, her undeveloped children, should win the approbation and receive the hearty support of all interested in the true welfare and progress of the nation. We feel that one of the reasons why pupils do not remain longer at the primary school and look forward to continuing their education at some higher school is that, in the country at least, the kind of work undertaken by the higher school has but little direct bearing on the life and work immediately ahead, and since pupils are unable to obtain the needed training in the school, they go to seek it in what appears to be the more attractive and profitable life outside. We hope before many months have passed to sec a course of rural instruction in full operation in most of our district high schools —a course which, while providing for a training in such branches of elementary agriculture and handwork generally as are best adapted for a preparation for rural life, will not lose sight of the claims of other subjects or the interests of pupils wishing to prepare for the public examinations. Such a course, we have hopes, will attract many who under present conditions drift away to work after obtaining a Standard VI certificate, and will have the effect of inducing some of those who now leave the primary school before reaching the upper classes to remain until they obtain a proficiency certificate, with the object of taking advantage of the training then open to them. Before closing this paragraph we should like to repeat what has been said so often before—viz., that the schools lay no claim to being able to turn out farmers ; there will be much to learn beyond what the school can teach before the evolution of the farmer ia. complete: but what they do hope to accomplish is to direct the attention of young people towards rural pursuits, to bring home to them that work on the land is more efficient, more interesting, and more profitable if directed by trained intelligence, and that the problems awaiting those who will eventually become farmers are sufficiently complex to tax the resources and ability of the brightest and most experienced. The school-garden is now recognized as a necessary adjunct to primary education in all progressive communities where prosperity depends largely on the products of the soil. Some of the schools have already made a beginning in this direction, and possess well-cultivated and well-stocked plots which cannot fail to be a source of pleasure and profit to all concerned. We hope to see very pronounced advance in this branch of school-work in the near future, consequent upon the recognition of its importance, as also upon the Board's action in appointing an instructor in rural science, whose services will be available for the training of teachers, and for giving assistance and advice in the matter of preparing and setting out garden-plots, and in the preparation of suitable courses. The difficulties inseparable from the lot of the sole-charge teacher may prevent the lower-grade school from being credited with any large number of gardens, but all other schools in country districts, we have confidence,

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