E.—4

14

During the year only one boy was admitted to the school. This must not be taken as an indicathere is a shortage in the number of applications for admissions. Our waiting-list is larger than last year, and will continue to increase until our extensions allow us to accommodate more children. Two boys were discharged during the year. In one case the lad was in a very poor state of health, and physically and mentally unable to derive any benefit from special training. The other lad who was discharged had only been nominally admitted, and had not been in residence at the school. After this lad had been nominally admitted it was discovered that he was over the age of twenty-one years. This being so we had no power to detain him. This case should be dealt with, by the Mental Hospitals Department under the Mental Defectives Act, as this lad should be under continuous supervision. Deaths and General Health. The number of deaths during the year was one —a lad of Mongol type aged seventeen years. The cause of death was tubercular meningitis. This is the second death which has occurred here during the past six years. The death-rate, as I have pointed out in former reports, is exceptionally low. The average life of mental defectives may be reckoned from twenty-one to twenty-five years. The general health of the children has been excellent. Our greatest effort is always to prevent sickness, and the large number of treatments recorded for minor ailments really indicates good preventive work. Many cases of slight ailments in our children, if not detected early and treated accordingly, are the beginnings of serious trouble. There have been no epidemics and few serious illnesses, but with this class of children much attention is required in the cases of ordinary sickness and chronic cases of ear and eye trouble. The epileptics need daily attention and constant care and supervision. Scholastic Work. The day school is arranged into classes which aim at providing the proper training for each child. The classes are small, the number in each class varying from seven or eight to fifteen. The kindergarten and training classes provide for the younger children for whom sense-training is essential. With the middle-grade children the possibility of progressing far with ordinary scholastic work is very small, so that the work of this division is mainly manual work, with a view to special training for vocational work afterwards. Even with the higher-grade children the ordinary scholastic course has to be of a most elementary character, and we aim at giving abundant opportunity for training through manual and vocational studies. During the year much patient painstaking work has been accomplished in the various classes, and the development of the minds of the children has been demonstrated by what has been achieved in the school. Many of the children who, previous to entering on their school career, were apparently most hopeless have developed surprisingly through the awakening of the senses. This has been accomplished only after very persistent effort on the part of the teachers. The keynote of all training has been the awakening of the senses through the emotions, and by external stimulus the directing of the awakened faculties into congenial occupations. Thus much creditable work has been accomplished in macrame, raffia, knitting, basketry, and other forms of handwork. The low-grade children show great interest in their performances in any form of handwork, and will work on day after day making knitted dusters, marcame bags, Smyrna rugs, &c. Manual Instruction. We are still requiring proper workshop accommodation, but I am pleased to be able to report excellent results from the tuition we have been able to give in our temporary workshops. Without an adequate number of workshops it is impossible to satisfactorily carry out the training of our children or to arrange a suitable school time-table. As has been stated previously, all the children should be engaged for half of each day on some form of manual training. This cannot be given effect to without a complete range of manual-training shops. The wood-carving department, which is a new form of manual training, this year is progressing very satisfactorily. lam hoping that a few of the boys will in time become proficient in this form of handwork. The following articles have been carved in the wood-carving department: photo-frames, coal-scuttles, tea-trays, flower-stands, pipe-racks, occasional tables, newspaper-racks, &c. These articles are on sale at the school. A fair number of the boys are making good progress in the basketmaking department. All the store, farm, and garden baskets are manufactured on the premises. In addition to the above-mentioned many other kinds of baskets —rfancy and otherwise —are made. We have also commenced manufacturing our own basket hairs. Our baskets are on sale at the school, and I shall be glad to receive orders from other Government Departments and institutions for any kind of basketware which they may be requiring. At present our basketmaker instructor is partly engaged in teaching the boys to make coir mats. This arrangement works fairly satisfactorily at present while the number of boys is small. The chief drawback, however, to this arrangement is that the instructor's attention is too much divided between the two occupations. In the early stages of either basketry or matmaking our boys require constant attention and direction. This is almost impossible when one instructor has two sets of boys to teach at one time. When our new workshops are completed a matmaker should be engaged to supervise this branch of the work. At present we are making all the mats for the school, and we shall be in a position to supply all mats required for our own buildings.