71

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Extract prom the Report of the Director op the Ashburton Technical School. 'Ilie session commenced in February with a large increase on the entries of the previous year. This large increase has been maintained throughout the year, and should be a source of satisfaction to the Managers and to the community, for on both it reflects great credit. The number of individual students attending technical classes was 402, school classes in woodwork 222, and in cookery 240. The collective roll number of the school, including all classes, was 1,244. While the number of individual students has increased by fifty-two, the roll number has increased by 244. This is due to the fact that the classes have been reorganized under the groupedoourse system, which means that nearly all of the students are now taking an approved course of related subjects. The details of the rolls of the various departments are as follows : Domestic science—Home nursing and first aid (two classes), twenty-eight students; cookery (three classes), eighty-five students; dressmaking (seven classes), 151 students, millinery (three classes), sixty-four students. Commercial —English (three classes), seventy students; arithmetic (two classes), sixty-two students; shorthand (two classes), thirty students; book-keeping (two classes), fifty-three students; typewriting, thirty-one students. Trade classes—Practical mathematics, five students; trade drawing, ten students; carpentry (four classes), fifty-three students; metal-work, ten students; magnetism and electricity, nine students; wool-classing (two classes), students; sheepshearing (two classes), thirty-two students. Art —Coppenvork and wood-carving, four students; painting and designing, eighteen students; teachers' drawing, eight students. In addition, physical culture was taken by seventeen students. All classes have increased with the exception of that for copperwork, which had to be discontinued at the end of the first term. The painting class is still small. The trade classes are still lacking those that should be there, especially apprentices, and still greater effort will be made next year to awaken the interest of employers and open the eyes of the employed to the advantages of these classes. The wool-classing and sheep-shearing classes have both been very successful this year, and if this continues, in the case of sheep-shearing increased accommodation will be necessary. Two students sat for the City and Guilds of London Examination in cookery, and both obtained passes. Three students entered for the shearing competition at the Christchurch Agricultural and Pastoral Show, one of them winning third prize. The special course started at the beginning of the year by the Board has been very successful; it seems to have supplied a real want, enabling, as it does, boys and girls to utilize their free places who would not otherwise do so. A start was made with a girls' hockey club during the year, and a very successful social was held in connexion with the same. I hope next year to report considerable developments in the social side of the school. A comprehensive exhibit was sent to the Auckland Exhibition including work in carpentry, metal-work, drawing, cookery, dressmaking, and millinery. It is regrettable that something should not be done, if not to compel at least to encourage, the continuance of studies after leaving school in the cases of those pupils who have not obtained proficiency certificates entitling them to free places. An eminent writer on education in a recent article said that education should have an essential minimum, which is that girls should become fit for motherhood and mentally and technically fit for managing a household; that the boys should become fit for fatherhood and mentally and technically fit to earn a living in some department of labour. This minimum cannot be given in a system that casts the child adrift at fourteen years. If the children who fail to get proficiency certificates were given the opportunity to pursue their studies by being granted a free place at technical classes at other than day technical schools we should go a long way to securing this " essential minimum." If not a free place to all, then at least to those who secure a competency certificate, for it is from this latter class, which includes the plodder who only requires his chance to continue his education and becomes a valuable national asset, that we largely draw our artisans and agriculturists. It is this class and not the brilliant few that has placed Germany in the forefront as an industrial nation. A large number of children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen are entering upon industry without the specialized training which modern industrialism is constantly making more necessary, and which might influence them in the direction not only of efficiency but of ambition. We must have a connexion between education and industry, and a means of maintaining this connexion after industrial life has begun. This step should be taken, as a Professor of Economics points out, partly in the interests of industry and trade, in order to provide a greater national efficiency in technical processes, and partly on the more direct human ground of preventing the drift of children leaving school into the unskilled occupations which lead afterwards to the problem of the residuum. The plea therefore for free technical training on behalf of all those children not fortunate enough to secure proficiency certificates cannot be too strongly urged. During the year a total of 436 primary-school children attended the Ashburton centre, 198 boys taking woodwork and 238 girls taking cookery and domestic science. They have attended from the following places : Rakaia, Chertsey, Dromore, Fairton, Hinds, Tinwald, Springburn, Alford Forest, Anama, Mt. Somers, Greenstreet, Elgin, and from the Convent. The keenness that the pupils show for this work and the remarkable regularity of attendance must have a good effect upon their general school-work. Next year I am rearranging the time-table so that there will be no attendance during the winter months, and arrangements will also be made to provide the pupils with a hot lunch. There is an urgent necessity for a building at Methven for woodwork and cookery classes. Methven could be made a centre for the following places : Methven, Highbank, Lauriston. Lyndhurst, and Alford Forest. T hope the Board will see its way to put this in hand soon, so that we can, if possible, start these classes during the coming year. I have to thank each and every member of the staff for their very efficient and enthusiastic work, which has enabled the Board to place on record such a very successful year. The tharks of the Board are due to the following contributing bodies —County Council, Borough Council, High