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The figures for future years presume that the length of stay at school will remain as at present, and that the percentage coming on from primary schools will remain constant. The total population, Maori and pakeha, is included in these figures : 1945 .. .. 56,034 1950 .. .. 57,700 1946 .. .. 57,035 1951 .. .. 59,000 1947 .. .. 58,465 1952 .. .. 60,500 1948 .. .. 57,515 1955 .. .. 70.000 1949 .. .. 56,600 1960 .. .. 84,000 These figures emphasize the very great building programme required for the needs of post-primary schools. Other matters of interest are discussed in the paragraphs below. The Post-primary School Like other growing and developing organizations, the New Zealand post-primary school has been shaped by heredity and modified by environment. The earlier schools were strongly academic in character, as was to be expected of schools which had as their model, if not as their parent, the English public school, and which were designed to prepare pupils for a University education. The technical high schools were a later development, first as short-course day schools for young people soon to go into industry, later also for pupils preparing for the University but anxious to associate the pre-Univer-sitv studies with more practical aspects of their future calling. These schools made an immediate appeal to the average boy or girl who delights in the concrete rather than in in the abstract. It was, however, clearly impossible to justify both types of schools in country districts and small towns. The country technical high school, therefore, provided a full academic course, with some art and handwork, as well as one or more prevocational courses. The older country secondary school first added manual training (woodwork and cookery), and then adopted and developed technical courses backed by extensive workshops and equipment. It is therefore true to say to-day that there is little difference in many cases between schools established as secondary schools and schools established as technical schools, but as the schools have travelled along different roads to this point, the resemblances are occasionally superficial and the differences deep-seated and more elusive. There can be no doubt, however, that all post-primary schools that are called upon to serve the needs of all pupils in their community will become indistinguishable except for those desirable modifications which the particular needs of the district or the personal views of a headmaster will call into being. New Zealand will then have developed and perfected a type of multi-purpose school which has been an object of interest and occasionally of admiration to visitors from Britain. The position in the cities of New Zealand is, however, somewhat different. Here the technical school has accepted the responsibility for providing part-time technical education, mainly in evening classes hitherto, and the secondary school has concentrated on studies leading to the public examinations, more particularly University Entrance and University Entrance Scholarship. Further duties are now being undertaken by the city -technical schools (and by many all-purpose schools in other centres) in the daylight training of apprentices and the full-time day training of students for certain professional examinations. Some of these developments are referred to elsewhere in this report. It is perhaps idle to speculate on the future work and status of the city technical schools, for aspirations may well be negatived by extreme pressure on all available buildings; but it is certain that, however much rural post-primary schools may move towards one another, city technical schools and city secondary schools are likely to diverge. The differences between our solution of the problem of the education of the adolescent and that adopted in England are not always understood. The impact of environmental conditions on the developing system in England has produced three

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