E.—6

54

Successes of Pupils. —At the public examinations held towards the end of the year the following successes were gained by pupils of the Boys' School : Fourteen matriculated, of whom four gained oredit in the University Entrance Scholarship Examination ; in the Public Service Entrance and Senior Scholarship Examinations forty-two passes were obtained, thirteen with credit; one Junior Board and four Senior Board Scholarships were won, including the first place in the latter. Twentynine boys were granted senior free places as the result of the visit of the Inspectors in October. Among old boys the following successes may be mentioned : F. Adamson, L. Wild, and 0. Wild gained their M.A. degrees with honours; B. H. Gilmour, T. R. Ritchie, T. Wyllic, and W. Brownlie gained their medical degrees—the first two at Otago, the tnird at Glasgow, and the fourth at Edinburgh University ; R. Plawke was gold-medallist at Lincoln Agricultural College, the third Southlander in succession to win the sole annual honour ; J. P. Hewatjgained the senior scholarship foriNew Zealand in English (The Tinline Scholarship), and W. T. Cody the senior in electricity; while F. W. Reid was appointed Registrar of the Adelaide School of Mines. It is worthy of mention that in the terms results of last session of Otago University there were thejnames of some forty old boys, of whom twelve succeeded in winning first places in fifteen subjects. A farge number of old boys are serving either with British, troops on the Continent or with the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces. A goodly number hold commissions in the Royal Army Medical Corps, or in regiments of horse, foot, or artillery, while others are happy in serving their country in a humbler capacity as privates. The following are the examination results for the Girls' School for the end of the year : Senior free places awarded on visit of Inspector, thirty ; Senior Board Scholarship Examination pas*ses, seventeen places out of thirty-three and six scholarships out of eleven gained by the girls ; Matriculation, seven full passes and two partial passes ; Junior University Scholarship Examination, the only candidate from the school on her first attempt passed with credit, and gained the highest place in Southland ; Class D Examination, 1914, two full passes (one with distinction), and three partial passes ; also a Women's Scholarship, Otago University, and a bursary were gained by girls from the school. Buildings. —With the increased attendance and. the increased staffing required by the new Act both sohools are somewhat overcrowded, more especially the Boys' School, where one or two more class-rooms are urgently needed. The Board, however, has in view tin; proposal to sell the present buildings and site, which in many ways are unsuited for a secondary school, and to erect a new school on the fine site of over 16 acres recently acquired at Gladstone. Under the circumstances the Board has made only temporary provision for an extra class-room for the boys till the present crisis through which the nation is passing is over. The Board has also decided to erect a new laboratory for the girls, because of tin; present arrangements, which necessitate the sending of the girls to the Technical College for practical scientific work, are unsatisfactory, and should be improved upon as soon as possible. The Government renewed the grant previously made for a girls' hostel, and made it available for boardinghouses for both girls and boys, and plans for these buildings wore, in course of preparation in July, when the nation was plunged into the present titanic struggle, which, has necessitated the reduction of all expenditure as much as possible. Consequently, at the request of the Minister of Education, the Board has decided to postpone further the erection of the much-needed boardinghouses. Inspection. -Both schools were inspected by Messrs. Gili and Cresswell in October, and. in their reports these gentlemen speak in complimentary language of the methods of teaching, organization, and general management. Altogether the Board has reason to believe that the discipline is highly satisfactory, and that the work is in the hands of capable and efficient teachers. . Financial. —The statements of receipts and expenditure, and of assets and liabilities, show that the Board's financial position has improved during the year under review by approximately £700 ; but all the money in hand and in sight will be needed when the Board's building programme is given effect to. R, A. Andurson, Chairman. 2. Work op the Highest and Lowest Classes. Boys' School. Highest. —English—Shakespeare, Julius Caesar; A Victorian Anthology; Palgrave, Golden Treasury; Chaucer, Prologue; Kingsley, Horeward the Wake; Historical Grammar; Composition arid Rhetoric. Latin—Readings in Livy, Cicero, Virgil, Horace ; Unseens in Prose and Verse ; grammar ; ] composition ; history; and antiquities. French—About, Le Roi dcs Montagnes ; Gems of Modern French Poetry ; Unseens, phonetics, grammar, composition. Mathematics Arithmetic, algebra, geometry,"jind trigonometry to University Scholarship standard. Science -(1) Chemistry, Inorganic; metals and non-metals, qualitative and quantitative analysis. (2.) Electricity and magnetism to University Scholarship standard, with laboratory-work. Lowest. —English —Reading, Laureata ; Favourite Greek Myths ; grammar, composition, and spelling; Kingsley, Hereward the Wake. Geography —Physical. History —A brief survey of British, history ; The Growth of the British Empire, 55 B.C. to a.d. 1.485, Warner and Townsend. Latin— Weloh and Duffield's Accidence ; Gardiner's Translation Primer. French —Moore and Donaldson, Intermediate French Course I; Siepmann's Rapid Reader. Non-Latin students —Book-keeping; commercial arithmetic ; European history ; elementary agriculture. Non-French Students —Same as for non-Latin students, without the history. Mathematics —Arithmetic, algebra to factors; geometry, Barnard and Child's Junior Course. Science- Hooton's Junior Experimental Science, with laboratory-work.