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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4780, 18 July 1876, Page 2

We have before us the report of the Education department of the province of Otago for the year ending December 31, 1875. A remarkable feature about the report is found in the account given by the master of the School of Art in Dunedin, which shows with what remarkable success evening classes in connection with the school have been conducted. We learn from the report that " evening classes for artizans and othors engaged during the day were open on Mondays and Wednesdays from 7 to 9, for the study of freehand and model drawing, shading from copies and from tho, casts, painting, &c. ; and on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the study of geometrical, mechanical, and mechanical and architectural drawing. The number of students

continues isteadily Jto increase ; the progress during the past year was as satisfactory as during previous years, andthe diligence of the students while in:school is beyond all praise." The satisfactory point about these classes is learnt by the nature of the attendance upon them. The published analysis of the occupations of the students attending the evening classes in the School of Art during 1875 gives :■ — 14 carpenters, 6 painters, 11 clerks, 4 teachers, 21 mechanical engineers, 2 goldsmiths, 2 reporters, 2 iron turners, 4 pattern makers, S moulders, 4 blacksmiths, 3 surveyors, 6 joiners, 2 coach painters, 2 solicitors, 4 civil engineers, 3 lithographers, 1 ironmonger, 5 architects, 8 boiler makers, 2 cabinet makers, 3 brass founders, 2 draughtsmen. This is State and popular education in its truest sense. We have not here the State helping to flood the various professions with young men incapable of earning a living by other means, and therefore bringing misery on the community ; but we see the State helping the industrious of all classes to improve themselves in their vocations.