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taking the place of the flat copies formerly used. Facilities for the working-out of mechanical and architectural problems in the shape of well-equipped carpentry, engineering, and plumbing workshops have kept pace more or less with requirements, and marked improvements in methods of instruction and study are visible in most cases. Although the schools still have to compete in the matter of students with private organizations operating in New Zealand that rely on specially prepared text-books as a means of conveying information to their clients, it is satisfactory to know that so many students realize that the opportunity to acquire skill as well as knowledge which the technical school provides—it may be under instructors whose qualifications are inferior to the compilers of the text-books referred to —is of more value to them than the best text-books without the teacher and without the workshop. Considerable improvements have been made in methods of instruction in connection with commercial classes. The continued and ever-increasing demand for instruction in subjects related to commercial pursuits has enabled controlling authorities and managers to make provision for full courses of instruction. Book-keeping, shorthand, and typewriting are no longer regarded as constituting in themselves adequate preparation for commercial life. The courses of commercial instruction provided at the day technical schools in the larger centres, while they include these subjects, include a great deal more, inasmuch as the general education of the pupils receives adequate attention. The inclusion in the course of industrial subjects for boys and domestic subjects for girls is also a step in the right direction. We believe that employers have every reason to be satisfied with the product of the day technical schools so far as the supply of trained junior clerks is concerned. Whether from the point of view of social economics the marked preference shown by a large proportion of technical-school students for commercial courses is indicative of a desirable state of affairs or the reverse is another question. It is a matter for regret that so little progress lias been made during the period under review in connection with the provision of facilities for instruction in subjects bearing on agricultural and pastoral pursuits. Most of the attempts that have been made to establish technical classes for persons engaging in these pursuits have been attended with results the reverse of encouraging, except as regards classes for wool-classing, and in the case of most of these many improvements in methods of instruction and in the treatment of the subject generally require to be made to bring them into line with the methods of dealing with other and (nationally) less important subjects of technical instruction. Generally speaking, the commercial side of the subject receives the greatest amount of attention. The importance of this aspect is not to be deprecated, but if wool and all the various topics relating to wool-production are to be treated as are other subjects of technical education, future developments will require that the principles underlying the production of wool shall receive at least as much attention as the classing of wools according to texture and quality for the convenience of the wool-buyer, and in order that the producers may obtain a slightly higher price in the open market. Some improvements have been effected in connection with the teaching of certain domestic subjects. In the larger schools where dressmaking is taught the instruction is now being given without reference to charts and other mechanical devices for pattern-drafting. Cookery still continues to be taught from the practical standpoint only, except in a few cases, notably classes for nurses and for teachers preparing for public examinations. In this connection it may be remarked that there does not appear to be any demand on the part of men who are working as cooks in the hotels and shipping of the Dominion for instruction in cookery. Ihe establishment recently of a chair of domestic science at the Otago University will, it is hoped, go a long way towards the solution of the problem of the trained domestic-science teacher, and thus help to raise the important subjects of hoirte science and economics to the position they should occupy. In conclusion, it may be said that while something has been done in the direction of the extension and consolidation of technical instruction during the past decade, much yet remains to be done to bring it into closer relationship with the industrial needs of the country, and it is considered that the interests of the Dominion as a whole will be best served and its material advancement best helped forward by devoting more attention during the coming years to technical education in its relation to primary industries. It is to be hoped that at the close of the next decade it will be found that at least as much time and attention have been given in the schools to the primary industries as have in the past been given to industries that cannot be so described. M. H. Browne, ) T . m , ; , ¥ E C Isaac inspectors of lechnical Instruction. The Inspector-General of Schools, Wellington,