E.—2.

innocent people of intemperance in any form in a highly industrialized and mechanized society, for man has called to his aid intricate and highly efficient, yet potentially dangerous, machines which only the sober can safely be trusted to manipulate. Safety-teaching, then, is not a thing apart ; it is not for special occasions or for exhibition purposes ; it is a daily need. Radio and Cinema. The equipment of schools with radio proceeds steadily. There are now over seven hundred schools with forty-six thousand'pupils participating in the weekly educational broadcasts. The Department lias made arrangements whereby schools are enabled to obtain radio sets at a very considerable reduction in ordinary retail-price. Every radio, so obtained is guaranteed to give very satisfactory output. During the year a conference of organizers of programmes for schools was held, to ensure more complete co-ordination in the compilation of broadcasts. In Auckland and Christchurch the Training Colleges assume the major responsibility for the broadcasts ; in Wellington, however, the programme is in the hands chiefly of persons outside the Training College. The broadcasts are given every week between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. Arrangements have been made for the Correspondence School to broadcast information and advice to its pupils for half an hour weekly. This should prove a valuable means of ensuring closer contact between the school and its far-flung pupils. The film as a medium of education has been the subject of some interesting experiments, particularly in Auckland, where there is a Visual Education Association whose members have at their disposal a considerable number of films of more or less educational value. The Wellington Film Society has also done much to arouse interest in the matter. A conference on the subject of visual education expressed a wish for the subject to be given a trial in selected centres. In this matter many problems are involved—e.g., the relative value (and cost) of sound and silent films and projectors, the establishment of a film library with a staff of dispatchers and technicians to repair projectors and films, the question of subsidy or grants in aid of projection equipment, Customs duties on projectors, and the design of rooms to secure the exclusion of light but not of fresh air. On some points there appears general unanimity of opinion : that fos school purposes the smaller 16 millimetre film is preferable to the 35 millimetre used in public theatres, and that music and superadded commentary are by no means always an advantage to a teaching film. The 16 millimetre film is not only the much cheaper film, but its non-inflammability renders unnecessary those expensive precautions that have to be taken in the ordinary theatre. The use of the film is more common in France, Germany, and the United States of America than elsewhere. In Germany the cost is borne entirely by the institutions benefited, the pupils paying about Is. 6d. a year and University students about 3s. 6d. Of this revenue, one-half is spent on projectors and the remainder on the production of suitable films. In America, with its huge concentrations of population, many firms make both projectors and films ; in some cases the projectors are obtained on very easy terms if the schools concerned undertake to hire the firm's films. There, hundreds of films are available for hire or for outright purchase. In England, the question is one for the local education authority ; so far, progress in England has not been rapid, only approximately eight hundred and fifty schools being equipped. The problem is to a considerable extent one of finance, and, as in equipment generally, New Zealand is under the severe handicap, compared with more populous lands, of having its small school population distributed among nearly three thousand schools. While on the question of cost, mention must be made of a very much less expensive form of visual education, that of the film-strip and its projector. The film-strip consists of a number of pictures from, say, twenty to one hundred, of any one subject—e.g., scenery, industry, and history —arranged on non-inflammable film. This film is passed through a small projector one picture at a time. Picture follows picture only when the previous one has been properly explained by the teacher. The projector costs approximately 25 per cent, of a cheap silent-picture projector, and the film-strip about 5 per cent, of the average moving-picture film. The films are so small that a couple in their containers can be carried in a vest pocket. Any teacher familiar with a camera can take his own pictures or select them from various sources and have them photographed on a strip. A number of schools are now purchasing this equipment. On the whole, one feels that the enthusiasm which has characterized the schools in the past will be maintained, and that though school activities will be wider and the treatment of the pupils more individual, this will not be at the expense of thoroughness, for if our system is fully to justify its existence it must ensure —to quote a recent writer—" that at every point, at every issue, a desire to tackle a problem, a willingness to grow, a personal pride in achievement and habits of social use and of self-discipline are encouraged." I have, &c., .Tas. W. Mclleaith, Chief Inspector of Primary Schools. The Director of Education, Wellington.

7