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establishment of separate manual training schools for children who have completed their general elementary course. The first establishment of this kind was the manual training school m connection with the Washington University at St. Louis. The following is a sketch of the plan :— "It is essentially a non-classical high school, with fully-equipped shops annexed for work in wood and iron, Candidates for admission must be fourteen years old, and pass an examination about equivalent to the requirements of the second class (next to the highest) in a grammar school. The course of instruction covers three years. The daily session begins at 9 a.m. and closes at 3.20 p.m. Each pupil has three recitations a day-one hour of drawing and two hours of shop practice. Hand work is divided into four departments-namely, carpentry, wood-turning forging, and machine-shop work. It is claimed that, without teaching any one trade, the essential mechanical principles of all are taught." A system of public education which provides instruction for more than 11,000,000 children requires, of course, a very large teaching staff. It is proposed here to give some account of the provision made by the States for the training of teachers, and to examine the position which teaching holds as a profession in the country. The number of public-school teachers m the United States, city and rural, reached, according to the latest report, the total of 293,294. To meet this demand, all the States with the exception of six, have established State normal schools, or training colleges, as we should call them, and a number of the larger cities have followed the example. There are in all ninety-eight State normal colleges and twenty-one city normal colleges, having an attendance of about 25,000 students. The following account of the Washington school is interesting :— " The normal school takes a limited number of graduates from the high school, and gives them a one-year's course of professional training, the study of the theory and the practice of the art of teaching. The candidates admitted are selected by competitive examination, which secures to the school a high standard of academic scholarship as a starting-point for each class. The normal school has practice schools of the first and second grade, under the exclusive control of the principal of the school. The teachers of the practice schools rank as assistants m the normal school. Schools of the higher grades are also made use of for observation and practice. The fundamental principles of education can be studied best in connection with their application m teaching young children. Hence the greater part of the practice is in the lower-grade schools especially assigned for this purpose. The rate of salary offered is much larger than that for which the life work of able teachers in Germany is obtained. For instance, we find that the average remuneration of male teachers in the public school is, in the State of California, at the rate of £192 per annum, in Massachusetts £240 per annum ; the rate for female teachers is in most States considerably lower, but in California it averages £156 per annum, in Massachusetts it sinks to £84. The average rate throughout the States seems to be for males about £144, for females £110. When we compare these figures with the salaries in the French primary schools, where the masters' salaries vary from £36 in the lowest class to £48 in the highest, or with the Prussian schools, where the average salary is ascertained to be £51 12s. per annum, we shall perceive what an expensive system that of the United States is. One of the most curious features of the public-school system is the large preponderance of female teachers. So large is this preponderance that it would not be far from the truth to say that the cities where male teachers are employed in elementary schools in any other capacity than that of principals or as teachers of special subjects may he reckoned as the exceptions. In the mixed high schools the numbers of male and female teachers are about the same. Where the high schools are unmixed, those for boys are taught by male teachers, those for girls by women under a male principal. Selecting a few of the largest cities, we find that in New York the number of male teachers is 452, the number of female teachers 2,899, the ratio being 1 to 6-4 ; in Boston 122 males as against 996 females, the ratio being Ito 8-2. In Philadelphia and Chicago the preponderance of females is much greater, the ratios being 1 to 25-4 and 1 to 23-6 respectively. If we take twenty-four of the largest towns we find that the average proportion of male teachers to female is about Ito 10. In Chicago there are, in fact, in the elementary schools no male teachers, properly so-called; for the men reckoned as teachers are in fact superintendents, each with a large number of classes and teaches under his direction. Nor is this custom confined to city schools— the rural schools also are largely taught by females; thus, in 1882 there were in Massachusetts 1,079 male teachers as against 7,858 females, in New York State 7,123 male as against 24,110 female. This condition, however, does not hold in all the States: in most of the central States, such as Kentucky and Tennessee, there is a considerable preponderance of male teachers, as also is the case in certain of the southern States. On the whole, taking the numbers in all the States, the number of female teachers is nearly double that of male teachers. It may be supposed that considerations of cheapness have chiefly prompted the employment of females in preference to males, but there seems also to have existed a strong impression in favour of their greater efficiency, and even now the question seems an open one. " Some years back it was quite common for State Superintendents of schools, in their reports, to mention as a matter of congratulation and as evidence of progress the increasing proportion of the female teachers ; but there seems to have been a turn in the tide. The question is coming to be discussed in more than one place, whether the displacement of male teachers has not been carried too far for the best interests of our schools." This question is in no small measure identified with the question of the greater permanency of school offices. With women, as a rule, teaching can only be a temporary occupation and not a life work; and thus, if for no other reason, the best teachers will generally be men. [Approximate Cost of Paper.— Preparation, nil; printing (1,425 copies), £47105.]

By Authority: Geobge Didsbubv, Government Printer, Wellington.—lBB7.