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Woek op Highest and Lowest Classes. Highest. —Latin : Cicero ; Virgil; Livy; Horace. Greek : Thucydides ; and passages from Tragedies. Mathematics, including Euclid, algebra, and trigonometry. English. French. , Science, including biology and mechanics. Divinity. Drawing. Shorthand. The standard aimed at is that of the Junior University Scholarship. Lowest. —Elementary Latin; arithmetic ; English, including reading; history and geography ; writing. Scholarships held at the School dueing the Last Quaetee of the Yeae. Headmaster's Scholarships. —Four valued at £33 ; one valued at £21; two valued at £12. Education Board's Scholarships. —At £40, three ; at £20, one. Bishop of Wellington's Scholarship. —At £12, one. WELLINGTON COLLEGE AND GIELS' HIGH SCHOOL. 1. Eepoet of the Boaed. The Governors of the Wellington College and Girls' High School have to report that in terms of the Wellington College and Girls' High School Act of 1887 a new Board has taken office, and the funds of the two institutions, excepting such as are held specially in trust for either of them, are now amalgamated. Both the institutions have done good work during the past year, but, as mentioned in the last report, the Governors have been greatly hampered by want of funds and by the burden of interest which they have had to bear through the exceptional treatment to which Wellington has been subjected by having to provide its own school-buildings. They are not only prevented from working the institutions to the best advantage, but their position is so seriously embarrassed that they will have to consider whether they can carry on their work unless the Government will relieve them by paying off the moneys borrowed for buildings. The pledge given by Sir Eobert Stout when Premier and Minister of Education, that the Government would assist the Board, has never been carried out, and the Board would urge that something may be done next session to put their finances on a better footing. The Governors take this opportunity of referring to the report of the Provincial District Auditor on the Girls' High School accounts for 1887, which is full of inaccuracies. The Auditor states that a sum of £141 12s. Bd. was charged against the ordinary income, but should have been charged against a Loan Fund Account. This is manifestly absurd. There was no Loan Fund Account, and the Governors had a right to spend income on the new buildings if they thought fit. The sum of £104 45., expended on account of the new building, was paid out of the Building Fund—not nominally charged against it, as the Auditor says ; and this was explained to him. His statement, that." there is a balance of a sum transferred from the Ordinary Account to a so-called Building Account," is not correct. There was a Building Account, a balance of the first grant from Government for the expenses of starting the Girls' High School, which was kept separate, and the £104 4s. was charged against it. There is nothing in the Wellington College Acts prohibiting the Board from incurring an overdraft. The remarks of the Auditor about the arrangements under which the Girls' High School building was erected are extraordinary. The whole matter was explained to him. The Governors had proper, control over the expenditure. Their architect was in charge of the building, and upon his certificate the contractors from time to time took credit for sums expended, and from the dates of such certificates interest began to accrue. The Auditor says, " The course pursued by the Trustees in this matter is considered to be in direct contravention of law." So it may be, in the Auditor's opinion ; but the action of the Governors is supported by the opinions of several of our best lawyers, such as Sir E. Stout, Mr. H. D. Bell, and Mr. A. de B. Brandon. The Governors have not gone outside the law. The Act authorises them to mortgage the rents and profits, but not to give the power of sale over the land; this is what they have done: they have mortgaged the land without giving power of sale to the mortgagees. This enables the mortgagees, in case of default, to enter on the land and take the rents and profits, but gives them no power over the land beyond that; and therefore the land is not alienated or assigned over to any person in the sense stated by the Auditor. The action of the Governors with reference to the real estate intrusted to them was not extraordinary, but simply in accordance with the powers given them by the Act of 1878, under which they established the Girls' High School. The Auditor invites the attention of the Government to the "peculiar construction" of " The Wellington College and Girls High School Act, 1887," and states that it was evidently not the intention of the Legislature that the incomes of the Wellington College and Girls' High School should for the future form one common fund. Here again the Auditor's opinion is at variance with that of two of the abovementioned lawyers—Sir E. Stout and Mr. Bell; and the Governors can hardly be blamed if they have followed their advice instead of Mr. Macalister's. The Board ask that this report may bo printed in the parliamentary papers, as that of the Provincial District Auditor appeared in the papers laid before the House last session. Chas. P. Powles, Secretary to the Board.

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