The library now consists of 380 volumes upon technical, science, and art subjects. Over 200 volumes have been circulated amongst the students in connection with their special requirements and trades.

During the year the school has been visited by several persons from other centers specially appointed to obtain information as to the system adopted, and a considerable correspondence has also been conducted with various committees and associations requiring information.

There can be no doubt that the success of the work is mainly owing to the thorough grounding given in the primary and elementary work, the value of which is now being felt throughout the entire district. The whole work, from primary to secondary and thence to the higher and individual trade branches, being controlled by one center, gives undoubted advantages which other centers lack.

With reference to the technical classes, it is disappointing to find the employers, with the exception of the iron founders and the builders' association, who contribute to the prize fund on behalf of their respective trades, do not sufficiently interest themselves in the matter of this education, for undoubtedly they reap the greater advantage. The success of the movement would, I believe, be almost doubled if the employers would show that they valued it, and would take a practical interest in the work of the school in connection with their employees. I hope sincerely that ere long they (the employers) will awake to the enormous importance to themselves, their workmen, and the colony, of the advantages of technical work, for it is undoubtedly a strong step toward commercial prosperity.

Finance. The cost of the school to the board has, by the most rigid economy, been considerably reduced, and is now practically a profit to the board to the extent of £165 ($825). The total expenditure for the year is £1,761 16s. ($8,809). Receipts £1,163 158. ($5,818).

Special schools.-In addition to the general provision of public elementary schools special schools are maintained in the several colonies for the training of the deaf mute and the blind. These schools are of private origin, but receive subsidies from the colonial governments.

Private institutions.-Private schools are liberally supported and largely patronized, as will be seen by the statistics tabulated below. The universities which are included also in the table are either examining and teaching bodies, as in New South Wales, or merely examining bodies, as in New Zealand. In the latter case candidates for a degree pursue their studies in affiliated colleges. The universities have been subsidized by grants of land and by annual appropriations.

This brief general survey of educational work in the Australasian colonies will serve to preserve the relation and due proportion of more detailed accounts here reproduced from various sources.

The first paper appended is by Mr. D. White, M. A., rector of the Otago Normal School, New Zealand. It is a report made from personal observation of the school systems of Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia, and gives an intimate view of the public schools of the colonies named, and incidental comparisons of their systems with each other and with that of New Zealand. This paper is followed by extracts from an article by Hon. C. C. Bowen, founder of the educational system in New Zealand.

The two papers following relate to the working of the compulsory school law and the care of neglected and criminal children in New Zealand.

PRIMARY EDUCATION IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA, VICTORIA, NEW SOUTH WALES, AND NEW ZEALAND-REPORT OF PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS.

By D. WHITE, M. A.

When a teacher from New Zealand is introduced to the educational institutions of the other colonies he is at first very favorably impressed with the results of their system of bureaucratic administration. I had a feeling that their large and numerous scholastic institutions must be in many respects superior to those with which I have been associated for a very long time; and this in face of the fact that I thought the New Zealand system of education was far ahead of anything I should see on the other side. I found, too, that the Victorian teacher thinks his system the best, the New South Wales thinks his the best, and so on. The teachers I met in Australia listened patiently enough to what I had to say about education in New Zealand, but you read in their faces that it is only little New Zealand you are talking about; and after all it does not matter very much what is going on in the Land of the Moa. It was only after putting a few facts about education in New Zealand before them, with regard to the number of our teachers and our school population, that they were able to see that in these respects, at least, New Zealand takes a very good position, indeed, when compared with our more populous and wealthy neighbors on the other side of the water. I posted myself up in the contents of the report of the minister of education in each of the colonies I visited, and was thus furnished

with statistical information regarding the state of education in the various colonies, and as these may prove not uninteresting to you I shall, by way of introduction, refer to one or two points bearing on school attendance and the cost of primary instruction.

The average attendance in round numbers is as follows:

South Australia...

New Zealand.

Victoria...

New South Wales..

40,000

106, 100

134, 000

139, 000

The population of Victoria is half more than that of New Zealand. It will thus be seen that a proportionately larger number of children attend the national schools of our country than is to be found in either Victoria or New South Wales, and that absolutely in point of numbers New Zealand holds a very respectable third place. In explanation of the comparatively lower numbers attending the schools of Victoria and New South Wales than in New Zealand, I may state that there are in both colonies a large number of private schools, academies, colleges, the rolls of which show an attendance of 46,000 in Victoria and 53,000 in New South Wales. New Zealand has 14,000, and in South Australia the number is only nominal. If you compare these numbers with the total population or with the school population, in each case you will find that our education system is, in this sense, more national and representative than in the other colonies, except, perhaps, in South Australia, where, as in our own land, all classes of the community send their children to the State schools. Here you have one of the most important points of difference between the education systems of South Australia and New Zealand on the one hand and Victoria and New South Wales on the other. It is sometimes said that the people in the colonies do not really value education, but I do not believe this, and the large amount of money annually voted by popular Parliaments for the purposes of education easily disproves the statement. For instance, exclusive of the sum spent in school buildings, we find the colonies, in a time of deep commercial depression, expending per head in average attendance sums as follows: South Australia, £3 4s. 10d.; Victoria, £3 14s. 8d.; New South Wales, £3 14s. 10d., and New Zealand, £3 16s. 6d. Besides this the Government of New Zealand wisely, I think, spends some £10,000 a year on the primary education of the native race. If we look at our education system in the light of these facts, we hold the premier place in the Australasian colonies, and in making this statement I have not omitted to take into consideration the fact that in New South Wales over £60,000 annually is contributed by the parents in the shape of school fees. The generous support given to education is also shown in the money annually voted for school buildings and apparatus.

I saw great variety in school buildings, most of them large, substantial structures, but in many cases the internal arrangements and the dimension of class rooms were not designed with a view to educational advantages and good organization. In Melbourne the prevailing type consisted of long, rectangular rooms, in which two or three classes were taught at one and the same time. It is now generally admitted that class rooms of this kind are a mistake, and in the more recently built schools a different construction and design have been generally adopted. The architectural features of a class room have a very great influence on organization, management, and methods, and this is a subject in which I think educational institutes should take more interest than they have shown in the past. I had an opportunity in Victoria of seeing the effect of shape and size of the class rooms on the general tone and working of the school. In one school I visited the long rooms were partitioned off into two rooms. The head master was so convinced of the utility and feasibility of the plan that he had the partition put up at his own expense. In the same district there was a school of the same size and staff, but with the usual long, rectangular rooms. The improved order and attention of the one school over the other were conclusive proof of the superiority of the smaller class-room system. The

plan of the schoolroom materially assists or materially interferes with the real work of the school, and to a greater extent than we have any idea of until we see both plans working alongside of each other. In the past the architect and the colonial treasurer have between themselves determined what kind of school buildings are most suitable. I hope that in the future educational requirements the comfort of the teacher and the pupil and the general organization of the school will receive more consideration and attention in the plans of public school buildings. I visited some of the more recently built schools in Adelaide, and found them constructed on more modern principles. I place before you a sketch of the ground plan of one of these schools, from which you will see that the smaller class-room system is provided for, with its great educational advantages and facilities. The best kind of infant school class rooms are to be found in the Adelaide schools. Having nearly the whole of the infant room taken up with long, steep galleries is a very great mistake. The infant-class rooms of the school I refer to were seated with dual level desks, wide, ruled in squares, and amply spaced out, so that the teacher could pass behind the seats and see the pupils' work from the pupils' point of view. The lowest classes of the infant department were provided with desks and suitable seats. As soon as the little one is introduced into the school he has his own seat and his own comfortable desk for his slate and other school appliances. The old-fashioned infant galleries and class rooms to be found in most large schools where the little ones have to sit without proper seats and desks for their slates, etc., are a reflection on our common sense, and ought to be replaced by more rational seating and desk accommodation. Observe those little ones at a writing or a drawing lesson in these galleries; notice the inevitable position of the body and of the slate. They naturally stoop forward, and they must seek to support their slate on the knees. The slate is held in a more or less upright and oblique position, and they are supposed under these conditions to write and draw correctly. But this is not the worst of it. Such attitudes as they must assume in these galleries are injurious to their healthy physical development, lead to incorrect positions of body, head, hand, eye, and to ineradicably bad methods of sitting and working, and that at a time, too, when above all things it is most necessary that the pupil should be taught the best method and under the most favorable surroundings. It is a very bad beginning to school work. If it were only for a month or two it might be tolerated, but consider that this state of things goes on for two years or more, and you will agree with me in saying that we need some reform in our infant-class rooms. On visiting the infant-class room I spoke of in Adelaide, I said to myself this is the kind of thing we require in Otago. The main room was all seated as I have described, with a small gallery, for oral lessons only, placed at right angles to the main room, and in a recess where the pupils were out of sight of those engaged at their desk lessons. I hope the education board will see that in future the infant rooms are seated and desked more in accordance with modern ideas, to suit modern infantschool work, which now includes manual occupations that can not be carried on with the present infant-school furniture and apparatus. In a considerable number of the higher classes the dual system of desks was adopted, but with such a modification of the principle of the system that the whole or nearly the whole of the advantages were completely lost. The desks were arranged on the dual system, generally on a rising gallery, but with no passage behind them. Now, to my mind, the economy of the teacher's time, which is one of the chief advantages of the system, is wholly nullified by such an arrangement. The teachers who were working under this system very generally disapproved of it, and said it was inconvenient, inasmuch as they had to stretch over another pupil to point out mistakes, and unsatisfactory, as the teacher lost rather than gained time under this arrangement of seats and desks.

A word or two with regard to the size of and the staffing of the schools. The efficiency of the instruction given under any public system depends somewhat on the size of the schools, and very largely indeed on the staffing of the schools. I was much

surprised at finding in the other colonies such diverse systems of staffing and organization. In Adelaide a school of 930 average attendance would have a school staff of 10 certificated teachers and 8 or 9 pupil teachers, while in Victoria a school of the same size would have 7 certificated teachers and 16 or 17 pupil teachers and monitors. In the latter colony I visited a school in which the head master told me that his staff was 6 assistants, 22 pupil teachers, and 4 monitors. The number of pupil teachers and monitors is often three or four times larger than the certificated teachers. The staffing of the South Australian school is one of the best features of their system. There are always more certificated teachers than pupil teachers and monitors. If you wish to institute any comparison between the quality of the instruction given, respectively, under the South Australian and Victorian systems you must bear in mind this important difference in the method of staffing their schools. The South Australian system is at present very similar to that adopted by us. Indeed, in our large schools, where an assistant takes the place of 2 pupil teachers, we have now in Otago a better equipment, so far as the staffing is concerned, than anything to be found in any of the Australian colonies. I was surprised at the number of very large schools in Australia. I do not think this is a desirable state of things. In Sydney I asked a head teacher the average attendance. He turned up his book and said there were 1,800 present that afternoon. It is, I believe, the largest school in Australasia. All the schools in all the colonies are classified on an average-attendance basis. In Victoria there are 5 or 6 classes, in New South Wales 10, and in South Australia 12, where a first-class school is defined as one having an average attendance of 600 and over. Of most importance in estimating the comparative merits of various systems of education is the qualification of the teachers.

A word or two with regard to this. My inquiries in this direction were not very hopeful. I was amazed, for instance, to find that out of a total number of 2,415 Victorian teachers nearly 1,000 have only licenses to teach or are unclassified. I have already referred to the inordinate number of pupil teachers in Victoria. Now, if we add to these the extraordinary large number having only licenses to teach, we shall not be far wrong in saying that three-fourths of the pupils in the public schools are in the hands of pupil teachers and other similarly qualified men and women. What effect must this have on sound methods of education? Education has been cut down to the lowest point in Victoria. For years the total cost of instruction was £662,000; last year it stood at £478,000, or an all-round reduction of nearly 30 per cent. But a people of such enterprise and intelligence will soon recover themselves in educational matters, as they are doing in commercial affairs. One can not but regret to find that Victoria has so many poorly classified teachers. They have only 31 teachers in their highest rank. In South Australia the teachers get a thoroughly good practical training, but there is a want of breadth about the literary side of their qualification. They should adopt the course of study at the Adelaide University as the basis of their classification of teachers. In the matter of the literary qualification of its teachers the New Zealand system stands at the head of the list. It has been said that the literary qualifications demanded from teachers in the higher ranks of the New Zealand system are really the highest expected from primary-school teachers in any part of the world. The New Zealand classification list of teachers contains over 250 university graduates. You will remember I said at the ontset that one's first impressions of the systems of education on the other side were distinctly in their favor.

Now, so far as I have gone, you will see that New Zealand comes out very well in the comparison, after all. With regard to the appointment of teachers. The appointment of teachers is in the hands of the minister of education, who makes the appointment on the recommendation of a board of classifiers, or committee of senior inspectors. When I mentioned that in New Zealand the appointment rested mainly with local bodies, the teachers of the other colonies spoke very strongly against our popular and local form of administration. One teacher expressed his