15

EL—le.

ground of expense, why the School should not be largely taken advantage of by practical miners and by other persons who propose to devote themselves to mining or metallurgical pursuits. The Board, however, does not venture to entertain sanguine anticipations that the colony will reap, to the fullest extent, the advantages derivable from the establishment of the School so long as it is considered not incompatible with the public interest that persons possessing no recognizable qualifications should practise in the colony those professions and occupations for the exercise of which it is the aim of a School of Mines to afford the requisite instruction and training. When, in May of last year, the Board submitted an outline plan of the School of Mines, it directed the attention of the Council to the consideration, which it conceived to be of the highest importance, that, if the proposed School of Mines were established, the University would then be able, by the single addition to its staff' of a Professor of Engineering, to call into existence a fully-equipped Engineering School. In now submitting a detailed plan of the School of Mines, which has since been founded iv connection with the University, the Board does not think any apology needed for again pointing out that the course of study therein contained, iv conjunction with the classes of higher mathematics and mathematical physics and of modern languages already instituted in the Arts curriculum, comprises all the subjects required to constitute a School of Engineering, with the exception of those technical branches which it would be the duty of the Professor of Engineering to teach. It should also be noticed that, as both applied mechanics and surveying would fall within the province of the Chair of Engineering, if such an appointment w rere resolved upon, the necessity for providing lecturers on these subjects for the School of Mines would thereby be superseded. If tho Council are unable, with the resources now at their command, to give effect to this proposal, the Board would suggest that it is a matter well deserving of being brought by the Council under the notice of the Government. The Board believes that many persons in the colony are now preparing themselves for the engineering profession, without enjoying an opportunity of receiving the technical and scientific instruction which it would be for the public advantage, not less than for their own, that they should possess. The considerations which have been adduced seem also to make it evident that the means now being expended by the Government and by the University on the School of Mines will be only partially utilized, until, by the institution of a Chair of Engineering, the Council are able to combine with the School of Mines an equally well-appointed Engineering School. By Authority: G-eokge Didsbuky, Government Printer, Wellington.—-1878, Price 9d.]