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tion, including not less than one year of a senior course in which the standard of work is sufficiently advanced in character to meet the requirements of the examination for a teacher's certificate of Class D, or of the Matriculation Examination. Eikewise the higher leaving-certificate may be granted to pupils having satisfactorily completed at least a four-years course of secondary instruction and having satisfied the requirements of the lower leaving-certificate, and, in addition, having completed to good advantage and under certain conditions a further secondary course of not less than one year.

2. DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOLS.—REPORT OF INSPECTOR OF MANUAL INSTRUCTION AND EXTRACTS FROM REPORTS OF INSPECTORS OF SCHOOLS, EDUCATION BOARDS, DIRECTORS OF MANUAL INSTRUCTION, ETC.

REPORT OF THE INSPECTOR OF MANUAL INSTRUCTION. Sm, — Education Department, 16th July, 1917. During the year a more or less complete course of instruction in subjects relating to rural pursuits was provided in connection with the secondary departments, of thirty-eight district high schools. The fact that over twelve hundred pupils received such instruction cannot be regarded as other than satisfactory in view of many adverse circumstances, such as the apparent failure of many parents engaged in farm-work to appreciate the value of secondary education for their children, the apparent unwillingness of parents in many cases to make the necessary sacrifice, the depletion of the labour-market and the resulting opportunities for profitable employment for lads in other than farm-work, and the lure of the town for the average country lad. In estimating the results of the instruction it appears necessary to take the following factors into account, viz. : The function of the course; the direct as well as the indirect value of the instruction; the kind of employment taken up by the lads who have passed through the course; and the qualifications and mental attitude of the teachers in charge of the classes. It may be said without qualification that the rural course does not provide, and was never intended to provide, a systematic course of instruction in practical farm-work. In one district, however, the pupils from a group of district high schools attend on one day in each week at a small experimental farm established by the Board, and carry out actual farm operations on a somewhat limited scale. Camps are also arranged at stated periods, when the students receive instruction in shearing and wool-sorting, and attend lectures and demonstrations by experts on live-stock. Visits are also made to farms and orchards, where the operations of the farm and of pruning, spraying, &c, are carried out. The instruction in dairy science is supplemented by visits to dairy factories, where opportunities are afforded of not only seeing the whole of the operations connected with butter and cheese making, but of actually participating in the work. Although this is not yet possible in all districts at all the schools where the full rural course is recognized, laboratory and outdoor experiments directly related to the farm are carried on under expert guidance. Some form of systematic experimental work is therefore an integral part of the course, and all the special subjects of the course have a more or less direct bearing on or relation to the farm, it being contended that this is as much as can be done under present conditions in the direction of actual farm-work by young lads. Speaking generally, the course provides opportunity for pupils to discover themselves, or to discover whether, by inclination, aptitude, and prospects, they are fitted for any branch of the primary industries, and if wise, sympathetic, and unprejudiced counsel is available to guide them at this critical period, many whose interests in the things of the soil have been quickened will not drift into other employments, but will use the training received at a district high school as the ground-work for more advanced studies, or at once put the knowledge accumulated to practical use. Instances of lads going straight from the school to farm-work, because they loved it or for the purpose of gaining wider experience, are not unknown. Speaking of the function of a course of instruction in agriculture that may properly be. given at a rural secondary school a well-known authority on educational subjects says, " The controlling aim in this field should not be direct vocational skill or even knowledge designed to be applied in specific callings, but rather the broad appreciative insight and sympathetic contact which will result in high standards of utilization and a measure of vocational idealism." In these remarks the function and aims of the rural course in district high schools appear to be clearly and wisely stated, and in spite of limitations in knowledge and outlook which may have " clouded the goal," the work of the year under review appears to have been carried on with the definite purpose of giving an interest in and an understanding of the elementary principles underlying the work of the farm. The rural course for girls has a direct bias toward the things