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Owing to interference with the university evening classes, the lecture course of the St. John Ambulance Association was attended by only two of the students, who were successful in gaining certificates of "First Aid," as required by the new regulation instituted by the Council. During next session the number attending these classes will, no doubt, be much larger. There were no evening classes in assaying and surveying held during the session, as no one made application for them. Regarding the number of students to be counted upon to return for next year's session, it will probably be thirteen, as two of the eighteen on the roll have completed their studies, as previously mentioned, and three, who have not finished, were uncertain of return. However, as in previous years, there is every probability that an accession of new students will bring the attendance up to the average of past sessions, for it is now becoming generally recognised that the knowledge gained at a School of Mines opens to a young man who takes proper advantage of the whole course several avenues to remunerative employment leading to really good positions in time, if not in this, in other countries. The difficulty which our students have generally to face at the end of a session—namely, of finding places for practical mining work during the vacation—seems this year to have been more easily overcome than formerly. Two have gone to Ballarat, Victoria ; two to the Mount Bischoff tin-mine, Tasmania; and the others, I understand, have, with few exceptions, found work in coaland gold-mines in this province and on the west coast of the island. There was only one division certificate granted during the year to one of the past students— namely, that of " Mines and Land Surveyor," to F. B. Allen, M.A., B.Sc, who had become entitled to it by having been engaged for six months in the practice of mine- and land-surveying. The liberality of the Hon. the Minister of Mines (Mr. Cadman) in establishing three scholarships of £50 each per annum of the colonial Schools of Mines, tenable for three years at the Otago University, caused at first much excitement and satisfaction amongst our students. However, after the conditions of success in obtaining a scholarship had been closely studied by each, there seemed to be only two of the students—and these, I am sorry to say, are very doubtful—who showed a desire to try for the distinction. The reason for this apparant want of ambition is that, in order to avail himself of the money value of the scholarship in studying for a degree of the New Zealand University, which it is evidently intended for, an older student would have to extend his studies for several years longer, in order to embrace more subjects counting for the degree ; while a new student would have to reckon upon at least five years' hard study, as the examinations to be passed for the scholarships required three years' study at the School of Mines alone, and two years' study thereafter of degree-subjects is perhaps scarcely sufficient. Amongst our present students there are, however, few, if any, in circumstances permitting such a protracted university course : all are anxious to gain in three or four years — i.e., as quickly as is possible for them—the certificates of the mining and assaying divisions, and, with these credentials in possession, to go into the world in search of suitable positions, in the hope of meeting with similar success as some of our past students have achieved with like qualifications. To most of these students who went abroad found, without long waiting, satisfactory employment, while several gained really good positions. As a recent case

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