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Lyttelton Technical Classes.—Four instructors at allowances ranging from £19 to £5 Bs. Akaroa Technical Classes.—Four instructors at allowances ranging from £26 to £10. Rangiora Technical Classes.—Three instructors at allowances ranging from £55 10s. to £28 10s. Canterbury College Board of Governors, — School of Engineering.- Professor in Charge, £800. Eleven instructors at salaries ranging from £325 to £40. School of Art.—Director, £500. Twelve instructors at salaries or allowances ranging from £200 to £10. South Canterbury Eduoation Board.—Director, £250 16s. 6d. Special instructors for woodwork, £223 13s. 6d.; for oookery, 1 at £174 Bs., 1 at £71 18s. lid. Timaru Technical School. —Sixteen instructors at allowanoes ranging from £50 to £4. Caretaker, £18. Temuka Technical School.—Director, £50. Seven instructors at allowances ranging from £40 to £12. Waimate Technical Sohool.—Director, £20. Secretary, £10 10s. Twelve instructors at allowances ranging from £28 7s, sd. to £3 10s. Caretaker, £14. Pleasant Point Technical Classes. —Director, £15. Secretary, £15. Two instructors, lat £15, lat £12 12s. Otago Education Board.—Special instructor for cookery, £130. Special instructors in woodwork—l at £154, lat £24, 1 at £10. School of Art.—Principal, £400. Six instructors at salaries ranging from £120 to £25. Dunedin Technical School and Sub-centres, —Direotor and Secretary, £175. Registrar, £25. Seventeen instructors at salaries and allowances ranging from £120 to £8. Oamaru Teohnical School.— Secretary, £40. Eleven instructors at salaries or allowances ranging from £80 10s. 6d. to £10. Southland Education Board.—Director, £50. Secretary, £45. Speoial instructor for woodwork, £200; and for oookery, £122 14s. 9d. Invercargill Technical School. —Twenty instructors at allowances ranging from £36 7s. 6d. to £10. Gore Technical Classes.—Eleven instructors at allowances ranging from £16 ss. to £5. Bluff Technical Classes. —Nine instructors at allowances ranging from £22 ss. to £10 15s. Mataura Technical Classes.—Eight instructors at allowances ranging from £21 to £5. Other country centres.—Two instructors, 1 at £8 175., 1 at £3 lis. 3d.

No. 3. REPOKT OF THE INSPECTORS OF TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION. Sib, — We have the honour to report as follows on the state and progress of manual and technical instruction in the Dominion during the year ending 31st December, 1907. A. Manual Instruction. During the year recognised school classes for instruction in various branches of handwork were held at 1,153 primary and secondary schools, as against 995 in 1906. The total number of classes for all subjects was 4,459, an increase of 620. Details of the number of school classes in the several education districts and of the subjects of instruction are given in Table B, page 9. It is apparent from the particulars furnished b}' the controlling authorities of primary-school classes that in an increasing number of instances the media employed by teachers in connection with instruction in those branches of elementary handwork to which most attention is now being given—namely, modelling, brush and blackboard drawing, paper and cardboard work, and bricklaying —are being used as instruments of education in relation to the general work of the standards. Thus we find modelling correlated with geography, nature-study, and elementary design ; brush drawing with elementary design and nature-study; paper and cardboard work with elementary arithmetic, mensuration, and geometrical drawing; bricklaying with oral composition, drawing, and elementary mensuration. In other words, exercises in handwork, instead of being confined to specific instruction in one or other of the above-named branches, are in many districts becoming slowly but surely merged in the general school curriculum as methods rather than as subjects of instruction. This method of treating elementary handwork, if adopted generally in the schools—and we hope that such will be the case before very long—should prepare the way for simplifying still further regulations and forms relating to instruction in handwork. As regards classes for instruction in what may be termed the more specialised forms of handwork, woodwork was taught in 280 classes, as compared with 188 in the previous year. Most of these classes are conducted at centres conveniently located and well equipped for the purpose. Speaking generally, a noticeable advance has been made both in the quality of the instruction and in the work of the pupils. The defects to which attention has been drawn in previous reports are not so apparent, and in the case of some centres really good work has been accomplished. We would like to see more evidence of attempts to bring the instruction into closer contact with other subjects of the school syllabus. At present the instructor in charge of a centre, and itinerant instructors visiting groups of centres, do not appear in many cases to be in touch with the general work of the schools from which the classes are drawn. As a consequence woodwork too often comes to be regarded as an outside or extra subject, unrelated to other subjects of the school course. The value of a course in woodwork might, we think, be improved by the inclusion of exercises in freehand sketching from the pupils' own work, and in practical arithmetic and mensuration. The number of classes for cookery was 327, an increase of over a hundred classes. Most of these classes are also conducted on the central system. As in the case of woodwork, and for the same reasons, there is little evidence of any connection between the instruction in cookery and that in other subjects. In most cases the instruction, so far as it relates to the practice of cookery, is satis-

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