E.—l

recommended the appointment of a sighted manager. It is a question, also, whether blind adults should not be boarded out, and receive only their instruction in the institution. These conclusions agree generally with the views of the Department, and it may further be observed that the teaching-staff of the day-school, consisting of one teacher for twenty to thirty pupils at various stages of instruction, is quite inadequate. Blind children need a large amount of individual attention, and one teacher to each eight or ten pupils would be a fair proportion. As the Government provides the greater part of the funds for carrying on the work of the institution, and the proper education of the blind is a matter immediately affecting the State, it would seem not unreasonable that the Government should have a large amount of control in the management. The subscribers and Trustees, who deserve much credit for carrying on this work voluntarily for the last thirteen years, appear to be not unwilling that there should be a large measure of Government control, and a Bill has been prepared to effect this end. The total amount paid on account of Government pupils during the year 1901 was .£332 7s. 10d. In addition to the payment of £30 for the annual railway ticket for the use of an agent of the Institute, the Department also paid £2 10s. for the passage of a pupil, and £1 for the separate tuition of a pupil in Christchurch; £41 Bs. was recovered from parents and others. The number of Government pupils at the end of 1900 was fifteen; one of these left during the year 1901, and none were admitted; the number of such pupils at the close of last year was accordingly fourteen. The remarks above referring to the compulsory education of deaf children apply also to blind children, and it is very probable that in a short time the number of blind children receiving instruction will be almost doubled, and that it will include all those of school age and of sound mind in the colony. Manual Training and Technical Instruction. During the year steady progress has been made in the formation of adult classes for technical instruction, and there has been a large increase—more than fivefold—in the classes for manual instruction in public schools, principally in the direction of introducing into the work of the preparatory classes and into the lower standard classes exercises based upon kindergarten methods. This feature is sound as far as it goes, as it seems to show that the spirit of the new movement is being rightly understood, for the change indicated by the introduction of hand-work into the school is not one affecting the mere details or machinery of school work, but is more fundamental in its character. Changes that affect only the externals of the school system, or only increase the number of disconnected subjects in the school syllabus, are sure to turn out in the end to be mere temporary devices. It has been the fashion to speak of that portion of a man's education that he receives at school as a preparation for life ; in truth, a man's education goes on throughout his whole life, and the time spent at school is not merely a preparation for life, it is part of life itself. If the manual dexterity and the regular and easy co-ordination of hand and eye and brain that lead to the development of skill in the workman or the engineer, the artist or the surgeon, be not developed in youth, then there is a gap between the schoollife and the after-life that is unnatural and prejudicial to the success of the adult; for there are few occupations in which some degree of manual skill is not at one time or another useful, and none in which men or women can afford to be without that all-round training of the mind that can be obtained only by combining the exercise of the muscular activities with that of the observation, reason, and memory. The instincts of the child herein guide him aright ; he is constantly examining objects and seeking for some fresh outlet for his muscular activities. (As every instinct corresponds to some reality, no instinct should be overlooked ; but every instinct should either be trained or be guided aright in the years of childhood.) These instincts are not such as mark the brute, but belong to the higher human intelligence, and they must therefore be taken seriously as indications of undeveloped powers, which need to be directed and disciplined, not suppressed, until they appear as scientific habit and manual skill in the youth and the adult. The new

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