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OTAGO DISTRICT. Extract from the Report of the Dunedin Technical School Board. The number of pupils admitted to the Technical High School reached 422, an increase of eighty-three on the previous year's figures. Including returned soldiers, the total enrolment for the technical classes was 1,290 individual students, being twelve more than in 1915, when 1,278 constituted the record. Buildings. --The erection of the Burt Hall, which was begun towards the end of the year 1917, was completed during the past session, and formally opened by the Minister of Education on the 30th August last. The building consists of a main hall, 100 ft. by 4-0 ft., and is capable of seating 600 people. This is to be used as an assembly-hall, a drill-hall, a social hall, and for all other purposes for which a large room is required. The classes for singing, music, and voiceproduction which are being arranged for the forthcoming session will be held in this hall. One half of the basement is fitted up as a luncheon-room for those pupils who bring their lunch to school and require hot milk, tea, or cocoa; the other part of the basement contains a small tepid bath in which swimming lessons are given to the pupils of the Technical High School. The total cost of (lie building was £4,728, which includes £242 paid since the end of the financial year. Judging from present indications the Managers anticipate that the increased attendance at classes for which provision has already been made, and the demand for the establishment of classes for additional subjects, are likely within the near future to necessitate considerable additions to the present building. Agriculture. —After repeated efforts to make the agricultural course a practical one the Board has been able during the past year to make a distinct step forward, and in future this branch of the Technical High School work will be on a more satisfactory basis. The Board has acquired from Messrs. Howden and iMoncrieff a small home farm of 39 acres in the Waikari district, with an old seven-roomed house and outbuildings. The ground contains about 20 acres suitable for the plough, and it is proposed to cultivate as much as is required to supply the house and the school, and to provide experimental plots for a complete course of field-work to meet the requirements of the first- and second-year pupils of the agricultural course. The rest of the ground can be used for grazing and for plantations. It is considered that the farm will be able to produce all the milk, eggs, and vegetables required for the domestic-science classes of the school. The farm is situated within ten minutes' walk of the 4\laori Hill tram, and about twentyfive minutes' walk from the Technical School. It is intended to establish a hostel on the. farm, and the Managers hope to make provision in the year 1919 for the accommodation of from twenty to twenty-five boys. Once this small place is in working-order the Board will make an effort to acquire, within t ten or fifteen miles of Dunedin, a farm of such size as will enable it to enter on all the work required for third- and fourth-year agricultural students. The possession of such a farm would enable a complete course in practical agriculture to be given as one of the fully organized departments of school-work. Girls' Hostel. —An' absolutely essential addition to the school is a girls' hostel, to accommodate at least sixty boarders. Year after year the need for this has been stressed, and it is increasingly urgent that it be provided without delay. Long-distance train travelling to school daily is particularly unsatisfactory for girls, and boarding facilities with the necessary proper supervision are difficult to obtain in town. From every point of view—physical, moral, intellectual— the need for such provision by way of a girls' hostel is strikingly apparent, and an effort must be made to supply this deficiency on our part. Plans have already been prepared, and it is hoped that the question of ways and means will be overcome during the present year —the thirtyfirst of our existence, which might well be marked by the establishment of such an institution. Furniture and Equipment. —As in previous years, it was found necessary to augment the equipment for class-teaching, and also to provide additional furniture. A motor-car for instructional purposes was purchased towards the end of the session, but the opening of the class revealed the fact that special and additional accommodation is required for the efficient teaching of motor engineering. The attendance at morning cookery classes of the pupils from the Otago Girls' High School necessitated the duplication of a number of sets of the cookery utensils. The thirtyseven typewriting-machines ordered in 1917 came to hand, and have contributed to the efficiency of the teaching of commercial work. Returned Soldiers. —Sixty-seven returned men applied for tuition, and, although it was not altogether convenient, the majority of these were taken into the Technical High School, where they could receive longer and more continuous instruction than in the evening classes. A number of these men wished to get directly on to the practical work, and fortunately the Director was able to arrange for such men to spend seven or eight hours a day for several months in motorgarages, woollen-mills, and workshops. Although the school did" not receive any direct benefit from the adoption of Ihis method of training, yet in the opinion of the Director the excellent results attained fully justified the course he adopted. The men soon settled down to work, adapted themselves to their surroundings, and were gradually—indeed, almost unconsciously—returned to civil life and absorbed in the general community. It is therefore a cause of regret to the Board to notice that through the action of a few members of a union of workers these avenues of training are in many cases no louger open to returned men.

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