Appkndtx.l

39

E.—6.

Rennie. who has had charge of the cookery classes for nine years, also left, to take up the appointment of instructress in cookery and domestic science at the Wellington Technical School, and the rearrangement of work necessitated dispensing with the services of Miss Alice Partridge, for three years teacheT of plain sewing at the school. In place of these two part-time visiting teachers, a full-time assistant, Miss Ethel Burns, a former pupil of the school, has been appointed as teacher of cookery, domestic science, and needlework. A general inspection of the school was made in October by Dr. Anderson and Mr. T. H. Gill. They also held a preliminary test examination of junior free pupils whose terms expired at the close of the year and who wished to qualify for Senior Free Places. Fifty candidates presented themselves : thirtyfour were awarded Senior Free Places without further examination, sixteen were required to take the regular public examination or some part of it, and eight of these subsequently passed. The technical classes were inspected during the same month by Mr. Isaac, and Mr. William Brock, the Chief Inspector of the North Canterbury Education District, examined the Sixth Standard pupils of the preparatory class. All seven of these received proficiency certificates and passed into the main school. At the December public examinations Wilberfield Gunn matriculated in the credit-list of the University Entrance Scholarship Examination, and gained a place entitling her to one of the two Gammack Scholarships of the year. Eleven pupils passed the Matriculation Examination. There were twentysix candidates for the Junior Civil Service Examination, of whom twenty-three passed, eleven being placed in the credit list. Six pupils gained Senior Education Board Scholarships, but as two of these had also gained a Junior National Scholarship and a Junior National Scholarship extension respectively, these were taken in preference by them. A pupil of the school cooking class gained a first-class pass at the local examination conducted by the London City and Guilds Technical Examination Board. Seven pupils in all were in residence at the authorized school boardinghouse : their health was very good all the year. In November a beginning was made- upon a much-needed enlargement of the school building, which is being extended along the Montreal Street frontage. This extension will contain five new class-rooms on the first and second floors, and on a third floor two large rooms specially fitted up for cookery and sewing and dressmaking classes. These have been very badly needed for many years. The following distinctions were gained during the year by past pupils : Jessie Scott (M.B. Ch.B.. 1909). degree of Doctor of Medicine. Edinburgh University, her thesis being " A Study of Pigmentation in relation to Disease in Children " ; Lydia Suckling, degree of M.A., University of New Zealand, with second-class honours in natural science (botany) ; Julia Pegg and Catherine Reynolds, degree of 8.A.. University of New Zealand ;■ and Elizabeth Harvey, exhibition in biology, Canterbury College. The keen annual demand for successful candidates in the Matriculation Examination to fill positions as pupil-teachers in the primary schools of the city and suburbs still continues to rob the school of much suitable material for Sixth Form work, and keeps the two upper forms disproportionately and undesirably small. There were this year only three genuine S'xth Form pupils, and only one candidate for the University Entrance Scholarship Examination. Such a small Sixth Form is not economical to work, nor is it good for so large a school to be so badly supplied with the elder girls, whose good example and influence upon the younger and newer pupils is of great importance and assistance in maintaining a good tone in all departments. It also seems a pity that from a secondary school of over 270 pupils there should not be a single pupil this year proceeding directly from the school to a University college. A break of two years between a high school and a University course is economically bad, and must lower the standard of proficiency of the University college students. The system of appointing probationers tends to still further increase this evil by inducing promising pupils who wish ultimately to become teachers to leave the secondary school at a still earlier stage. Mary V. Gibson. Lady Principal. 2. Work of the Highest 0d Lowest Classes. Highest. —Form VI, Upper : Work to standard of Junior Entrance Scholarship Examination. Subjects studied —Mathematics (arithmetic, algebra, geometiy plane and solid, trigonometry) : English (grammar, composition, literature): Latin: French; Roman history; physical science (heat): natural science (botany). One pupil has taken German in place of French. Latin (VI. Upper)— Horace, Odes, Book 111 ; Virgil. Aeneid. Book I (Page) ; Cicero, Select Letters (Jeans) ; Livy, Book IX, chapters 1 19; Tales, nf the Civil War (Lowe); Kennedy's Revised Latin Primer; Bradley's Latin Prose Composition ; Walter's Hint and Helps to Latin Prose ; Stedman's Latin Examination Papers. English (VI, Upper) —Shakespeare, Henry V (Deighton) ; Tennyson, In Memoriam ; Shelley, Adonais ; Browning, Saul ; Milton, Lycidas : Readings in Literature, Vol. 11l (Savage) ; Specimens of Early English. Part II (Morris and Skeat) : Nesfield's Historical English and Derivation. French (VI, Upper) —Sevigne, Select Letters; Racine. Les Plaideurs ; Dumas, La Tulipe Noire; English Colloquialisms and French Equivalents ; Spiers's Graduated Course of Translation into French Prose ; Spiers's Rapid French Exercises ; Siepmann's Short French Grammar ; Gasc's French Dictionary. German (Advanced) —Schiller. WilhelnrTell (Buckheim) : Ebers. Eine Frage ; Public School German Grammar (Meissner) ; German Prose Composition (Meissner). Mathematics (VI) —Baker and Bourne's Elementary Algebra, Part II ; Hall and Knight's Algebra ; Loney's Trigonometry, Part I : Hall and Stevens's Geometry. Parts I-VI. Science (VI. Upper) —Draper's Heat (Blackie) ; Lowson's Second Stage Botany. History (VI, Upper) —Horton's Roman History ; Human Antiquities Primer.