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E.—7

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The Faculty met five times during the session, at three of which the clamant needs of the various departments were discussed. In March, in reply to a request from the Chancellor, the more pressing needs of the Faculty were forwarded to the Council. In September the inadequacy of the heating arrangements of the class-rooms was once again impressed on the Council by a resolution of the Faculty. Later on a special meeting was called to meet the Chancellor who had expressed the wish to confer with members as to present needs and future developments of the Faculty. Most of the professors and lecturers dwelt at some length on their special departments and other matters, amongst which the following were emphasized : — (I.) The importance of taking steps to induce capable men to enter the school-teaching profession, and to encourage our graduates to remain at the University to pursue post-graduate work, and to act as assistants to the professors, for which adequate payment should be provided. (2.) To provide information, either by means of the calendar or otherwise, as to the prospects science students have of obtaining employment in Government Departments or elsewhere. (•'!.) The inequality of the salaries paid to the medical professors and to professors in other faculties, and the desirability of instituting a uniform scale. (4.) The necessity of restricting the number of first-year science students, owing to the crowded state of the laboratories and the inadequate assistance available. I regret that these matters have not received the attention the Faculty hoped for. The overcrowded state of the science classes continued during the session, and though the Council agreed to the extension of the Biology and Physics Departments, these matters v,-rrr unfortunately postponed, so that the overcrowding and inconvenience still exist. The classes in Latin were, as in the previous session, oonducted by Miss M. I. Turnbull, iiihl in Greek by Messrs. K. A. Saunders mid A. W. Smaill, while Professor Thompson again assisted the Council by taking the classes in pass degree mathematics and mechanics; and owing to the continued ill health of Mr. Martyn the honours work was supervised by correspondence by Professor Soimnerville, of Victoria University College. Archdeacon Woodthorpe continued his work as Acting Professor of Economics, as well as conducting the pass degree class in history, the advanced classes in which were taken by Mr. /\. K. .Anderson, as before, Io whom Dr. Hight, of Canterbury College, gave valuable assistance. Mr. Saunders continued to take the Greek class (ill mill-session, when Professor Dickie and Mr. A. W. Smaill kindly agreed to carry on this work for the remainder of the year. Two new lectureships were established- viz., in botany and in ethnology. The total number of students attending classes in the University during the session was 942; rather more than one-third belonged !<> this Faculty —viz., 333. This number includes thirtythree graduates who were reading for honours, and is made up of 184 women and 149 men. The cessation of the war, which hit, the Faculty hard, has led to a marked increase in the number of male students, who in L9lB numbered only sixty-three. But even this increased number is, from tho point of view of the future of school-teaching, a, serious state of affairs, both, because more male graduates are needed in the schools, and evidence il affords thai the profession is not sufficiently rewarded financially i<> attracl the best brains al g Our male students. It should be borne in mind that, in addition to (he above numbers, the first-year medical anil dental students, as veil as home science, law. and milling students, attend some of the classes of this Faculty. The results of the degree examinations of the University of New Zealand in 1918 were published during the session, and show that out of the seventeen Senior Scholarships available eight were gained by our students, one of whom qualified for three. In the scholarship results recently published if is gratifying to note that out, of eleven Senior Scholarships awarded seven came io Otago, one of our students qualifying for three; moreover, out, of five Science Scholarships our students gained three. Extract from the Report of the Dean of the Medical Faculty. I .have the honour to report that during the year 1919 the Medical School continued to progress in its rapid growth, and that the number of entering students exceeded former records, amounting to ninety-one. The strain thrown on the resources of the school, both as to accommodation and staff, became acute, and resulted after much controversy in the adoption of a scheme for concentrating the school buildings in the immediate neighbourhood of the Hospital by the erection of new Departments of Anatomy and Physiology alongside the Departments of Pathology and Bacteriology in King Street, with a view to obtaining greater continuity in teaching and more efficiency in the working of the school. This scheme received the approval of two successive Ministers of Education, and the necessary ground for the erection oi the new buildings is now being secured. The large entering classes of the two previous years will this year begin to be felt in the congestion of the Pathological and Bacteri-ological Departments, and the need for the completion of the Pathological Block is now becoming urgent. 1 trust that the acquisition of the properties to the south of (lie new Medical School will be proceeded with as soon as possible, as extensions in this direction are urgently needed. With the cessation of war if should now lie possible to secure further qualified assistants for the Laboratory Departments, and the difficulties we have laboured under in the past in this direction should be lessened. In this connection I should say that the system of trainees for the Health Department has been working satisfactorily, and has much aided the work in the Bacteriological and Pathological Departments

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