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for two terms. In June twenty-seven students entered for the South Kensington examinations, and twenty-three were successful in passing. Thirteen obtained first-class and ten second-class certificates. In November twelve members of the plumbing class sat for the Wellington Technical School ordinary plumbing examination, and ten passed. Towards the close of the year examinations were held in the various classes, and certificates awarded to students according to merit. In all, seventeen classes were held, with a total average roll of 344 pupils. W. Rutherford, Chairman. Statement of Receipts and Expenditure for the Year ending Slst December, 1907, in respect of Special Classes conducted at Palmerston North. Receipts. £ s. d.j ; Expenditure. £ s d. Balance at beginning of year .. .. 86 13 6, Salaries of instructors .. .. .. 492 9 3 Capital ion on special classes .. .. 170 9 1 ' Office expenses (including salaries, stationery, Furniture, fittings, and apparatus .. .. 11l 2 6 &c.) .. .. .. .. 29 17 4 Pees .. .. .. .- .. 376 15 7 Advertising and printing .. .. :. 61 17 0 Voluntary contributions .. .. .. 90 9 6 Lighting and heating .. .. .. 30 12 1 Transfer from Palmerston North High School liisurance, repairs, freight, and cartage .. 6 6 0 Account on account of apparatus .. 8 90 j Rent .. .. .. .. .. 48 10 0 Balance at end of year .. .. .. 16 6 2 Examinations, &o. .. .. .. 12 19 0 j Material for class use .. .. .. 72 9 6 Apparatus for electricity and magnetism .. 58 9 0 Furniture, fittings, and apparatus .. .. 34 14 2 Cleaning .. .. .. 12 2 0 £860 5 i £860 5 4 W. Hunter, Secretary.

WELLINGTON. Extract from the Report of the Wellington Education Board. During the year capitation under the regulations for manual and technical instruction was earned by 116 schools, as compared with 120 in 1906 and 110 in 1905. In all, 13,983 pupils received instruction in various branches of manual education. Instruction in cookery has been given at Thorndon and Newtown in Wellington ; at Levin ; and at various Wairarapa centres, including, for the first time, Martinborough. The instructor in woodwork began his duties in June in the woodwork-room at the Training College, and in rooms rented at Newtown until the completion of the South Wellington Woodwork and Cookery Buildings. The erection of this fine building, of the cookery and science rooms at Levin, and the fitting-up of science and cookery rooms at Greytown and Carterton should render the work of fnstruction at these centres both more pleasent and more efficient. The work of instruction in agriculture is dealt with at length in the report of the Inspectors. The number of school classes increased from forty-two to fifty. The Board is pleased to record that substantial benefit has been conferred on over twenty schools by donations to their funds, made chiefly for the establishment and improvement of school gardens. Donations, with the Government subsidy, resulted in the erection of a room for science in one district; in the purchase of a 2-acre technical-school site in another, and elsewhere in the purchase of a good microscope or other useful piece of apparatus. Large donations have in like manner, through local interest and generosity, resulted in improved equipment in at least three of our district high schools. Extract from the Report of the Inspectors of Schools. In our junior classes nature-study is finding increasing favour. A truer appreciation of its value, of its living interest to children, and of its higher aims is enabling many of our teachers to rely less on text-books and to work more along their own lines —this, much to their own and their pupils' profit. In many of our infant-rooms we now find the songs, the stories, the drawings, and models all made to centre round the bird or flower or insect the little observers have been studying. We need hardly say that co-ordination has its limitations, and these are exceeded when it is no longer purely a means to an end. Elementary agriculture in our country schools now forms the fit and proper complement to the nature-study of the lower standards, though we look forward to the time when the garden takes a more prominent place in the work of the P. classes. " The recent addition of elementary agriculture to the matriculation programme should do much to popularise agriculture instruction in country centres, and the eminently practical course prescribed by the University should have the effect of imparting to the curricula of our district high schools a character more in accord with their surroundings." Mr. Davies, the agricultural instructor, further reports that "At the end of 1906, the number of schools in the district earning capitation for recognised classes in this subject was forty-two. During 1907 the number has increased to fifty, while several schools which are too small to earn the grant have made a feature of nature-study as applied to the garden. At Makomako School, which formerly earned capitation for agriculture, dairy-work has been successfully taken up, the garden being still tended by the pupils during their spare time. Since 1906 the laboratories at Levin and Carterton have been equipped and a spare room in the Kereru School has been fitted up for chemical experimental work, the cost in each case being met by a grant from the Education Department, supplemented by local contributions. At Otaki, a bazaar realised £65, which, with the Government subsidy, will provide a useful building for laboratory purposes." The addition of school gardening to th?

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