E.—2.

The difficulty of this problem may be gauged from a consideration of the essential differences between the two classes of institutions. In a town capable of supporting an evening school the technical school is able to develop its true character, and only in such a town. In such a technical school the day school or technical high school is the natural nursery for the evening continuation and technical classes. Usually the pupils leave the day school when they reach the age at which learners are admitted to the several trades or occupations for which they are preparing. This means, in general, that few of the day pupils remain in the day school for more than two or three years, the average stay being less than two years. The prominence necessarily given to the evening class work determines in a large measure the location, buildings, equipment, courses, and organization of the technical school. The conditions for the full development of an efficient evening school may be summarized as follows :— (1) There must be a sufficient population engaged in industry and commerce to support a reasonable number of classes of suitable size. (2) There must be capable and sympathetic direction. (3) There must be efficient instruction by enthusiastic teachers, who must in all trade subjects have had good trade experience, and should be in constant touch with trade requirements. (4) The buildings must be centrally situated, convenient, and properly equipped for trade work. (5) There must be close contact with local industry and commerce. (6) There must be efficient office management and systematic " follow up " work with students. (7) There must be a development of corporate life and feeling, the growth of a school spirit and school tradition, and a favourable reputation with the public. Lacking these conditions the evening school cannot flourish. More than any other educational institution the evening technical school is dependent on the good will and interest of its students and of the public. The technical high school is therefore necessarily organized on lines to suit and promote the development of the evening work. It provides at once a training-ground for future evening students and day occupation for many of the eveningclass teachers. Its existence promotes most effectively the growth of a corporate life and feeling and a school spirit and tradition in the evening school, knitting together into an organic whole what would otherwise be a congeries of separate parts. From its close contact with industry the technical school divides naturally along the lines of separation of its several courses. Each course has its own syllabus, its own organization, its own head, and its specialist teachers, and its own contact with industry. The heads of departments in the technical high school are also usually heads of the corresponding courses in the evening school, and the full-time teachers are employed partly in day and partly in evening classes in which they collaborate with instructors from the trade or occupation concerned. The whole organization is planned to secure as close a connection as possible with trade and industry, the demands of which are carefully studied. The school itself is placed in a central position, playing-fields and spacious grounds being a secondary consideration in this respect. It is naturally, if not necessarily, a co-educational institution, even in the largest cities, for much the same reasons as the University colleges are coeducational. Thus the constitution and organization of the technical high school are determined primarily by the conditions essential for the successful operation of the evening school. On the other hand, it is found that the evening school cannot become a coherent institution with a corporate life without a considerable full-time staff and a body of day students, nor is it economical to provide buildings and equipment, for evening work alone. The day and evening classes are therefore in a great measure complementary to each other, and in the Dominion the day pupils on leaving the technical high school to go to work normally enrol in the evening classes for further more directly vocational training for the occupation in which they are engaged. There is no doubt that such an institution, properly conducted, is an efficient and economical educational instrument for the training of the great mass of those occupied in commerce and industry. It is definitely designed to supply the needs mainly of the child of average ability who can spend two or at the most three years in post-primary day schools and has little taste or inclination for academic studies. It is, of course, quite possible to add to the several commercial, industrial, art, and domestic courses of the technical high school, a general course suitable for the pupil who intends to enter some professional occupation, and proposes to remain at the day school for four or five years, and some of the work of such a general course will be suitable for pupils in the more technical courses who wish to prepare for the higher technical courses of the University. Such work is, however, ancillary to the normal business of the institution. Consider, on the other hand, the characteristics of a secondary school of the type corresponding in the Dominion to the public schools of Great Britain. In the first place such a secondary school is designed, to meet the needs of those who will remain for four or five years at school and will normally prepare for the University Entrance Examination, and continue in the Sixth Form in order to qualify for a higher leaving certificate or to sit for a University Entrance Scholarship. It is definitely not co-educational, for a number of reasons, chief among them being the decided opinion, in many respects well founded, that boys of seventeen and eighteen years of age should be trained, under men, and girls of those ages under women. The simplest way of ensuring that the training of the girls shall be entirely under women is to have separate girls' schools. There are other advantages in separating the sexes, and, on the whole, for the purposes of the long-course school, separation is generally regarded as being necessary to the development of a normal school atmosphere and school spirit on traditional lines. In the second place, the necessity for placing the school in a central position in the town is not urgent, but ample playing-fields must

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