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Extract from the Report of the Inspectors op Schools. Drawing and Handwork. —Due provision for the teaching of these subjects has been made in the school time-tables, and the treatment more closely accords with modern demands. In some schools a feature referred to in our report for last year still demands close attention—viz., the need of ■keeping a definite aim in view, and of preparing a varied and carefully graduated scheme of exercises as a means for carefully developing and systematizing the course of instruction. In the larger schools much of what may be regarded as industrial drawing is done in connection with the woodwork classes. Manual occupations of various kinds form a prominent and popular feature of the instruction given in the lower and preparatory classes, and by the more successful teachers have been successfully co-ordinated with the older subjects of the syllabus. Instruction in elementary agriculture in the higher classes comes as a natural development of nature-study in the lower portion of the school. Those teachers who have realized the aim skilfully and clearly set before them by Mr. Malcolm, the Board's instructor, succeed in making agriculture a truly educative subject by the intelligent combination of lessons on the principle of tillage, with practical and experimental work in the school-garden. It is gratifying to record the hearty support extended to this movement by the parents in several localities, though in one or two unexpected quarters the proposal to establish school-gardens is treated with apathy, if not met with opposition. A meed of praise is due to those teachers in sole charge who have shown an active interest in this branch of instruction, and whose school-gardens, besides being of educational value, form attractive features of the school environment. To those teachers whose schools have been associated with the various central classes credit is due for the sympathetic interest shown in such subjects as woodwork, cookery, laundry-work, and agriculture. A laudable effort at selfimprovement was made by those who, at some personal sacrifice, during their vacation attended the summer school conducted by Mr. Malcolm, and qualified by examination for the certificate in agriculture. Extract prom the Report of the Director of Manual Training. The present session has been one of change and development, and has not been free from the inconveniences that nearly always accompany these. The lease of the School of Domestic Instruction building, which has been used for cookery and laundry-work classes, terminated in July last, and it was wisely decided that no further attempt should be made to concentrate the classes. A grant having been made by the Department for a second centre to accommodate cookery, laundry-work, and woodwork classes, this has now been erected in proximity to the Sydenham School. Those who have seen the centre will agree that it is a credit to the Board, and will prove a valuable addition to the educational facilities of the district. Classes from Sydenham, Addington, Waltham, Opawa, and Somerfield Schools, together with sections of classes from West Christchurch School, will be accommodated in this building, and the fact that it is of ready access from these schools will enable the important work to be carried out with much less expenditure of time on travelling. I hope that the next year or two will see considerable improvement in the conveniences at the Normal School woodwork centre, and the erection of another centre in the east of the district that will provide as good facilities for schools in that direction as have now been provided for schools in the south. Early in the session we lost the services of Miss Evans, who had discharged very faithfully and well the duties of domestic-science instructor at the School of Domestic Instruction and Normal School centres for three years. Miss Blackmore and Miss Ponder have been added to the staff, and have carried out successfully the work intrusted to them. Next year Miss Blackmore will have general charge of the Normal School cookery centre, Miss Ponder of the Sydenham cookery centre, and Mr. Barrett of the Sydenham woodwork centre. With one exception the work of the year has been carried on as heretofore, the exception referred to being an increase of fifteen minutes in the cookery practice classes for Standard V. Three years ago it was decided to shorten the lesson for Standard V from an hour and a half to an hour and a quarter, but two years' experience proved that it was impossible to complete satisfactorily the majority of the practice lessons in this short period, and that the efficiency of the work was thus seriously impaired. Manual training seems still to be regarded by some as a branch of little importance, in spite of the fact that its high value is everywhere gaining increasing recognition. In England and Wales, for instance, in 1906-7 approximately 126,000 scholars received instruction in handicraft; in 1907-8 142,000 received such instruction. The English Board of Education recently set up a Committee of Inspectors to consider " how the extension of manual instruction through all the classes of public elementary schools and its co-ordination with the ordinary curriculum of the school could best be secured." This committee of educationists, consisting of highly trained university men, would certainly have no bias in favour of this work, and yet they say, " We would associate ourselves with the opinion often expressed that the education hitherto given in the ordinary elementary schools has not been in the fullest sense practical. We believe that with the introduction of good handwork methods the literary side of the education would also become more real and better appreciated." They draw attention to the well-known fact that the possibility of highly skilled movement of the hand depends upon a highly developed nervous system, co-ordinated in the brain, and, in its turn, the skilled exercise of the hand strengthens and extends the functions of the brain. " A close correlation has also been noted between the growth of power in speech and in skilled muscular movement, especially of the hand. The relation of the brain-centres involved is still obscure, but the connection in practice is undoubted. One observer has noted in an ordinary school, where manual work now plays a large part in the curriculum, that the store and use of language grow with the introduction of manual work, and points out that with a richer store of words the children have also become less discursive. To neglect a type of training of which the direct effect is to increase the

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