E.—l.

The gross expenditure for the year ended 31st December, 1898, was £3,342 14s. 7d., made up as follows : Salary of Director and teachers, £1,373 10s. ; steward, matron, and servants, £481155.; rent, £470; housekeeping, £742 19s. Bd.; travelling-expenses, £128 12s. 6d.; school material, £8 19s. 6d.; repairs and works, £26 Bs. 7d.; clothing, £23 9s. Id. ; medical attendance and medicine, £9 16s. 7d.; water-supply, £30 4s. ; sanitary precautions, £15 Bs. Bd.; sundries, £31 lis. Less amount contributed by parents, £207 12s. 7d. Net expenditure, £3,135 2s. The reports of the Director and the Medical Officer are printed in a separate paper (E.-4). Institute foe the Blind. The Jubilee Institute for the Blind receives some pupils for whose tuition the Education Department is responsible. The number of such pupils at the end of 1898 was 14, which was the same as at the end of 1897. The payments made by the department on their behalf to the Institute amounted to £337 15s. Bd., towards which a sum of £24 Bs. was contributed by parents. The department also paid £32 18s. for a yearly railway-ticket for the use of an agent of the Institute. No account is given here of grants made to the Institute by the in charge of hospitals and charitable aid. Manual Teaining and Technical Insteuction. The past year has been marked by a largely increased degree of interest in the question of manual and technical education, and, apart from the direct benefits derived from the aid rendered to classes for manual training and technical instruction, the Act of 1895 is bearing fruit by educating public opinion, and by preparing the way for larger and more comprehensive measures. What has been done in Great Britain, in America, and on the Continent of Europe has become more widely known through the medium of public journals and magazines, and the recent publication of Mr. A. D. Biley's report on " Manual and Technical Instruction " (E.-sb, 1898) has undoubtedly stimulated the minds of people throughout the colony, and tended to remove misconceptions as to the aims and methods of the new movement in education. In many primary schools in different parts of the colony an increasing amount of attention is being paid to kindergarten occupations in the infant classes, and to manual exercises intended as a continuation of them in some of the standard classes. Several of the secondary schools provide a certain amount of manual instruction; but it is doubtful how far either this work or the work done in the primary schools has been co-ordinated with the other subjects of instruction, or has become an organic part of the education given in the schools. We are, perhaps, in danger of forgetting that manual training—the specific training of the hand and eye in conjunction with the brain —involves not so much the introduction of a new subject as a change of method in the treatment of nearly all the subjects included in the school course ; that it not only develops powers that would often otherwise remain dormant, but provides, amidst the complexity of the demands of modern educational systems, the key to a true co-ordination so long sought for by Herbart and other earnest teachers. If our pupils are taught by direct observation of things, and if at the same time their constructive and creative activities are called into play, the different parts of their education are truly co-ordinated, because the various subjects of instruction are all, in a real sense, co-ordinated with nature. All other co-ordinations are more or less artificial. The principle of natural co-ordination is in reality an extension of the ideas of Froebel as exemplified in the best kindergartens. The same principle can be applied throughout all education—not only in the infant classes, but also in the higher stages of primary education, in secondary, and even in university education. Some of our best teachers already recognise this fact, and herein consists our best hope not merely for manual and technical education, but for a general advance in the intellectual training of the nation. We must come to realise the fact that, unless we assign to eye and hand and ear their proper place in each subject, the path of progress is closed to us. This is quite obvious in regard to skill in the industries, technical or agricultural,

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