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No. 12. The Secretary, Otago High Schools Board, to the Secretary for Education. Sic,— Dunedin, 9th March, 1885. I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 19th January last, forwarding a request from the Minister of Education that the Board would consider the advisability of including in the programme of the high schools instruction in technical arts, and to inform you that a committee has been appointed to give tho matter due consideration. I have, &c, C. Mac andrew, The Secretary, Education Department, Wellington. Secretary.

No. 13. The Chairman, Bangiora High School Board, to the Secretary for Education. Sir, — Bangiora High School, 24th April, 1885. In reply to your circular of the 19th January, re technical education, I have the honour, by direction of this Board, to state that the Board has carefully considered your suggestions, and entirely agree with yourself in the value likely to result from intelligent training in secondary schools in some arts or manufacturing industry, the initiation in which might properly be given in this and like schools. This Board would most gladly do something to help on the movement initiated by the Government in this direction—a movement we believe that will be attended with good results in the near future. Unfortunately for this Board we have but a very small endowment of £233 value per annum. This Board had to purchase a house for the master, and four and half acres of land on which to build a school, costing altogether about £900. The Board has paid £700 of this amount, one half of which has been raised by private subscription. The neighbourhood being far from wealthy the school fees are low. Then, we have a master, a graduate of St. John's College, Cambridge; and a lady assistant—girls also being admitted. Attendance varies from twenty to thirty. Drawing is taught, as well as languages and mathematics. Had we but the means of paying a skilled teacher from the School of Art, Christchurch—who we believe is now available—but for one day in the week, or for half a day in school, with a night class for the young mechanics and others in the town, as well as for the more advanced pupils, when instruction would be given in geometrical and mathematical drawing of every kind—machinery as it appears with other power than the human arms, now being applied to almost every industrial art; this Board believes that a small sum of, say, £40 or £50 a year, with a low fee, perhaps, charged to mechanics and others—this Board, in unison with the head-master and the assistant, thinks such an impetus would be given in the direction aimed at by the Government in its success in connection with this school as might induce other schools of far greater importance to make an effort to attain the object aimed at. I have, &c, A. H. Cunningham, The Secretary for Education, Wellington. Chairman, High School Board.

No. 14. The Secretary, Thames High School, to the Secretary for Education. Sir,— Office of the Thames High School, Thames, 21st April, 1885. By direction of the Board of Governors I have the honour to send you herewith a copy of a report made to the Governors in connection with a circular letter recently received from the Hon. the Minister of Education on the subject of technical education. The report is from the headmaster of the school, Mr. James Adams, B.A. I have, &c, Bichd. A. Heald, The Secretary for Education, Wellington. Secretary.

Enclosure in No. 14. I have carefully read the circular from the Minister of Education on the subject of technical education, and I am happy to say that the curriculum is year by year approaching the course of studies suggested in the circular. Physics is now taught to all the pupils of the school, except to those of the lowest class, and, so far as we have gone, the lessons are fully illustrated by experiments. Chemistry is to the same extent a part of our course, and very lately Professor Brown expressed his satisfaction with the result of the examination in this subject. We still need additional apparatus and also benches for the more advanced pupils, at which to carry on their own experiments. Mechanical and geometrical drawing are also taught alternately with free-hand drawing. Evening classes were also held for six months during the past year, which were well attended. Several young mechanics and apprentices came for lessons in mathematics and mechanical drawing. It ought, however, to be clearly understood that the chief discouragement to the pursuit of tho theoretical knowledge required in a trade, or, in other words, to technical education, is the difficulty that parents experience in having their children taught the practical part of a trade. In this town every master tradesman who can afford to take apprentices is besieged by applicants. Masters of foundries, tinsmiths, and carpenters cannot take on a tenth of those whom their friends desire to be brought up to trades; and this in spite of the fact that a man must be of some means to support his son during the first three years at a trade, when the latter receives but a trifling remuneration.