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whole school—e.g., " Waters singing," " o'er their way," " the words the waves repeat," " the rosy dawn is breaking," " the wooing breeze," " the blossom'd orchard trees," " the drowsy hum of bees " " silver voices." Such a poem may be used to illustrate personification, metaphor, alliteration, transferred epithet, the attention being drawn to the examples even if the words that designate these varieties of literary expression be not given. Children of the Sixth Standard should, however, know them This poem also illustrates the strength of simple English words ; and its breezy joyousness makes it a healthy study. The extent to which a teacher will proceed with the cultivation of literary appreciation will vary with the standard. The new syllabus suggests that special attention should be given to the pieces set for recitation and to say six of the best lessons of the reading-book. In Standard VI if the reading-book were rightly used, the pupils might easily be led to introduce more of literary variety into their compositions. These were mostly arid statements of fact. When the child comes to a passage like " I wandered lonely as a cloud," the unskilful teacher allows the opportunity to pass. A primrose by the river's brim A yellow primrose is to him, And nothing more. But the watchful teacher leads his pupils to a conception of the vast solitude of that upper air with the great blue meadows of the sky above and the dizzy abyss of gorge and sea below. Again, the verse in which occurs, " My heart dances with the daffodils," is a beautiful vignette in words, whose rounded beauty reminds one in the region of verbal expression of the sonorous purity of the bell-bird's richest notes. Sfelling. —There appeared to be an inclination to treat the different subjects on the watertightcompartment principle ; the spelling received insufficient attention in composition, geography, and in other general work—e.g., " Masculine Ginger is the name of a man," " A volcano is a burning mountain which sends out steam and larvse." This tendency to draw vertical lines of division between the subjects is most noticeable in the case of handwork—e.g., sticklaying and bricklaying could be correlated in single lessons with drawing, reading, and number without setting apart a special period on the timetable for these subjects. So, too, plasticine should be used to illustrate parts of the geography or in teaching letters, number, and drawing, or design, without the necessity of keeping it as a separate subject. I should like, if special capitation be continued, to see it gr anted for drawing when taught by concrete methods, geography, arithmetic, and the elements of reading likewise, rather than the present mode of subsidising, say, bricklaying for an hour a week. The subsidy tends to obscure the fact that handwork is simply a method of teaching the ordinary subjects. Perhaps with the advent of new training-colleges a general capacity for introducing the handwork of different kinds in illustration of the various subjects will be attained by those trained in these institutions. At present there is too little versatility in the modes of presentment. Throughout the district, spelling, arithmetic, and geography gave the worst results, 67 per cent, of success in spelling, 51 per cent, in arithmetic, 45 per cent, in Standard V. geography. Writing.—A fresh series of copies is required containing the requisite invoice-forms, &c, set for the different classes from Standard IV. upwards. In the lower classes it was frequently evident that the ruling of the slates had been left to the pupils—the lines were irregular and the writing could not be expected to be better. In most cases the children have to bring their own pens : the result is not fortunate ; with bad pens good writing is impossible. It would be better if the Committees could see their way to supply the pens and so insure uniformity in this extremely important branch. In a number of schools the writing appears not to be done under direct supervision and direction. There was much need of teaching the formation of the letters ; even where the transcription was specially prepared it could often ill stand looking into, and in some cases, though few, was disgracefully bad. In one school half an hour a week was devoted to the copybook—a portion of the time-table altogether inadequate. Samples of good writing from the better schools appeared to give a number of teachers the needed suggestion, and I expect improvement in this subject. A good bold round hand should be cultivated. Where the slope in the headline is too pronounced the children tend to a crabbed, lean, and cornered writing, and indulge too frequently in using the side of the pen. Composition.— The essays were in general composed of bald statements of fact. After a study of figurative language in the reading-book ; after also a definite direction of the pupils' attention to the beauties of nature in form, colour, and adjustment, the pupils of Standard VI. should be able to show taste in adorning their efforts. The vertical division of subjects was again very noticeable in composition, where spelling, writing, reading, elementary syntax, and science meet as it were on common ground. Side lights thrown on these subjects would tend to improvement in each of them :at present composition is mostly the production of information essays varied with studies of sentence and paragraph structure. The greater freedom of the new syllabus should lead to improvement in this subject. Oral composition or the art of thinking aloud, in well-constructed sentences, with consecutive thought, on given themes, has not hitherto received much attention. Several schools have entered into correspondence under the London School Board letter scheme. If these letters are used as a means of disseminating knowledge of the children's surroundings and aided by the occasional interchange of photographs, views, and the leading magazines or newspapers, a notable work may be done in making the children more observant of natural phenomena about them and in broadening their outlook. In view of the greater importance placed on composition as an essential to promotion it may be well to reiterate common defects—misspelling of simple words ; non-use of capitals—e.g., with names of days ; omission of apostrophe ; repetition of same word ; use of same word twice, with different meanings, in the same sentence ; ellipsis—e.g., " Soon as you rise," &c. ; mixing the tenses ; use of a pronoun in reference to a noun antecedent to some other prominent noun. Arithmetic.— As the cards issued by the Department were on the programme of the new syllabus, a selection had to be made to suit the work of schools still operating under the former code. The table