TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

Auckland Star, Volume X, Issue 2939, 15 September 1879, Page 3

TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

(To the Editor of the Star)

Sir, —Following up your leader of Saturday night, permit me to give the result of so<ne thought on the subject of Technical Education in this city. Hitherto what has been done in this direction appears to me to be too cramped, and the subject requires a more liberal treatment at the hands of our opulent citizens. I think it should be taken in band by the Auckland Institute, and classes should be formed after the Sydney arrangement, each to be held one or two evenings in the week. The charges should be fixed as low as possible, so as to give every working man or apprentice an opportunity of joining, and should be supplemented, as are the local Schools of Art io England, by annual subscriptions and donations by those whose means enable them to assist, and no pupil should be admitted to any of the classes except on the iccommeudation of a subscriber, and each class should be in charge of as competent a master as could be procured, and their instruction might be supplemented by lectures given by one or two of our lending men iv each branch. Thus in class B, commencing with architecture, invite, say Blr Keals or Mr Wade to give a few lectures on the theory and practice of building construction ; let Mr Frazer or Mr Maseficld give lectures on mechanics ; Mr Niccol on shipbuilding ; Mr Holdship or Mr Monk on the production and conversion of timber ; Mr Tunny on practical chemistry ; Mr Bartlett or Mr Uanna on photography; Mr Anderson, the City Surveyor, would give us road-making and drainage of towns ; Mr Errington, hydraulitß and civil engineering; and our chief magistrate would, no doubt, be glad to gire a lecture on the various instruments used in these various branches of technical science. Many others would, no doubt, come forward to assist. The good such a course would do is not easily estimated, as, instead of instruction given from a printed copy by an non-practical teacher, we should have the experience of our very best men given in language easily understood by an ordinary workman, and combining the results of long practice with the theory of each branch which has proved to be best adapted to the requirements and productions of the land we live in.—l am, &c., W. R. .

A man who loved at first sight, married, and was divorced, calls his wife Money, because a fool and his money are soon parted. "Have you a mother-in-law? asked a man of a disconsolate-looking person. ''No," he replied; "but I've a father ia jail." " Darling husband," she said, "am I not your treasure?" "Certainly," he replied, '"and I should like to lay you up in heaven." A Syracuse man, says the hunday " Times " of that city, thinks his wife is a righteous woman because she is never forsaken—by her mother. Truth is mighty—mighty scarce. When a man goes a-fishing and don't catch any fish, can you call him a triangular sort of a follow ? A boy in the high school having been required to give the plural ot two, answered •' Three !" and resumed his seat with a self-satisfied air. In a spiritualist meeting a Wilhmantic, Conu., a man sat between ffcwo of his wives, and a third was just behind him. There seemed to he no enmity in the party.