scientific agriculture, as taught in the Collegiate Schools. They have insisted on apparatus being purchased, and recommended a grant to be given by the Department to the School Board should it give a like amount up to $100 a year. This has worked so well that at the present time the Winnipeg laboratory is valued at $1,450, Brandon at $903 and Portage la Prairie at $565. While there seems less success with the teaching of physics, probably on account of the lack of suitable text books, yet the science work is immeasurably better done than at the beginning of the decade.

RESULTS.

"A tree is known by its fruit." The results of work done by these three Collegiate Institutes during the decade cannot be fully estimated. They have raised the standard of education for teachers, they have done the preparation work for the University in a steady and effectual manner, and they have diffused through the Province a much higher appreciation of the value of knowledge. It is estimated that these three schools have, during the past ten years, prepared the following successful candidates :

Some years ago the charge was brought against the Collegiate Institutes that their whole force was directed in two directions, viz., to prepare either for the University or for the teaching profession. This charge was hardly just, and is itself based on an educational fallacy. It ought to be the purpose of our schools to educate in the strict sense of the term, to teach such subjects and in such a manner as will best develop the powers of the individual, i.e., not to prepare for any special occupation or profession, but for all. A properly framed curriculum would educate the lad to work in a shop, to begin a skilled trade, to enter the University, to keep books in an office, to teach a school, to work on the farm; or the girl to take any of those occupations suited to her sex, to keep house, become a seamstress, a stenographer or intelligent servant. No tradesman, or seamstress, or shop employee has any too much education who completes a course in the Collegiate Institute. It is true many parents are not able to keep their children at school for this length of time. This is a pity; it is their misfortune and the misfortune of their children. Those in all these walks of life are to be useful in church, in society, in public life, in all places that our democratic country offers them, and they are handicapped to the extent that they have not the culture represented by such a curriculum as the

Collegiate finishing examination implies. The way to make any occupation respectable and honorable is that those in such occupations should compel respect by their intelligence and intellectual ability. No man is looked down upon by the mass of Canadians for being a working man, or an employee, or a clerk. What men and women are despised for is that, with the best education free as it is with us, there should be those who do not avail themselves of the splendid opportunities offered them.

THE COMMERCIAL COURSE.

The charge referred to led to the Advisory Board encouraging, as an experiment, the Winnipeg Collegiate Institute to establish a Commercial Course. It was believed that, for such a great business centre as Winnipeg is destined to become, it would be well to give in the last two years a course specially adapted to computation, bookkeeping and shorthand, along with English grammar and literature. This seemed a thoroughly practical course. It was introduced by the Collegiate authorities and has been watched with much interest by your Commissioners. It was thought, when commercial colleges demand large fees, that if the same facilities were given to the people free the course would be very popular. While this course has not been a failure, and the statistics of the second half of 1899 show fifty-nine taking it as against thirty-nine in the first half of the year, yet there has not been the enthusiasm in connection with the course that was expected. Perhaps the arrangements of the class room do not tend to develop the "business idea" which should take possession of each pupil in the course. Possibly the arrangements and methods followed in business. colleges might give to this department a stronger hold on those who are disposed to take it.

THE TEACHER'S COURSE.

Under the system of payments it is ensured that the subjects for all grades of certificates shall be taught in the Collegiate Institutes. This is a very necessary thing for the benefit of the Public School system. To depend on other Provinces, or to have an imperfectly educated class of teachers in our own Province, would throw Manitoba entirely in the background educationally. The teachers of the

Winnipeg school, probably 75 per cent. of whom are the product of Manitoba schools and colleges, are, it is admitted on all hands, as accomplished, intelligent and purposeful a body as can be found in any city on the continent; the same is true of Brandon and Portage la Prairie. In the matter of preparing teachers alone, the Collegiate Institutes have repaid the city and Province ten-fold for all the money that has been expended upon them.

UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT.

During the decade now closing there has been a great increase in the Collegiate Institutes in those taking the course preparing for the

University. It does not follow that all who take this course will go through the University. The system of reciprocity between the University and Advisory Board as to curriculum has no doubt induced many who intend to teach to take the University side of the curriculum. It is, however, noteworthy that while in 1891 there were one hundred and twelve in the Univesity course, or 36 per cent. of the whole in the three schools, in 1899 there were two hundred and forty-six in attendance, or 48 per cent. of the whole. The wider knowledge, and especially the training in language-study secured by those taking the University side of the course, will have a broadening influence on the minds of the teachers thus prepared.

ENTRANCE EXAMINATION.

The following is a comparison of the number of entrants for the last four years :

Winnipeg.

Brandon..

Portage la Prairie.

1896

1897

1898

1899.

The number of admissions by special examination to the Collegiate

Institutes for the same years was:

Your Commissioners are glad to notice a great improvement for 1899, in that the numbers admitted by special examination are relatively small.

TEACHERS.

No changes have taken place in the Collegiate Schools during the past year. The following are the members of the teaching staffs for

1899:

Winnipeg

F. H. Schofield, B.A., Acadia University

E. A. Garratt, B.A., Manitoba University

J. C. Saul, B.A., Manitoba University

D. M. Duncan, B.A., Toronto University.

R. H. Scott...

Miss B. F. Stewart

Miss A. L. Brunstermann.

$1,800 00

1,500 00

1,400 00

1,400 00

1,250 00

1,000 00

Miss Maggie Johnston, M.A., Manitoba University.. 1,000 00

1,000 00

wise pressure to bear on the pupils. Grants for fixed expenditure, attendance, number of rooms, teaching for first-class teachers and maintenance of a matriculation class, were judiciously distributed to make the schools efficient and well equipped. Your Commissioners, at the close of the decade, have to state that the plan has worked perfectly and given much greater contentment to the School Boards concerned.

ENTRANCE EXAMINATION.

While not in favour of a mere logical uniformity in the schools, your Commissioners recommended an entrance examination for the Collegiate Schools, to be conducted by the Department. This was not very well received in some quarters when first introduced. However, it has for several years been universally accepted and has had a most beneficial effect on the Collegiate Schools. The entrance examination has also exercised a salutary influence on the pupils of Grade VIII, who are leaving the Public School department to enter on secondary work. It has been a great stimulus to the teachers, and has relieved the principals of the Collegiate Schools of much trouble and annoyance.

LIBRARY.

Your Commissioners hold strong views as to the necessity of placing material in the hands of teachers and pupils for the study of literature and science. Ten years ago the libraries in the Collegiate Schools were trifling. Your Commissioners recommended, that on condition of the School Board spending up to $100 a year in reference books, a grant of a like sum should be given by the Department. The result has been wholly satisfactory. Winnipeg reports this year a library valued at $1,700, Brandon $910, and Portage la Prairie $408. The books in these libraries are well selected. While thus speaking of the excellence of these libraries, it is but right to state that to the minds of your Commissioners no better expenditure has been made in the Collegiate Schools than this. The devotion to literature, the larger acquaintance with the writings of the great masters of thought, the interest awakened among our teachers and pupils, especially in the great creations of Shakespeare and Tennyson, so observable in Manitoba schools and colleges in the last decade-such results have been largely obtained by the placing of good literature in the hands of scholars and teachers.

LABORATORY.

The utter uselessness of scientific teaching, apart from practical work in the laboratory, is now generally admitted. There is, however, a tendency on the part of teachers, in their hurry and fatigue, to neglect this practical work. Your Commissioners have used every means to secure practical work being done in botany, chemistry, physics and

scientific agriculture, as taught in the Collegiate Schools. They have insisted on apparatus being purchased, and recommended a grant to be given by the Departinent to the School Board should it give a like amount up to $100 a year. This has worked so well that at the present time the Winnipeg laboratory is valued at $1,450, Brandon at $903 and Portage la Prairie at $565. While there seems less success with the teaching of physics, probably on account of the lack of suitable text books, yet the science work is immeasurably better done than at the beginning of the decade.

RESULTS.

"A tree is known by its fruit." The results of work done by these three Collegiate Institutes during the decade cannot be fully estimated. They have raised the standard of education for teachers, they have done the preparation work for the University in a steady and effectual manner, and they have diffused through the Province a much higher appreciation of the value of knowledge. It is estimated that these three schools have, during the past ten years, prepared the following successful candidates :

Some years ago the charge was brought against the Collegiate Institutes that their whole force was directed in two directions, viz., to prepare either for the University or for the teaching profession. This charge was hardly just, and is itself based on an educational fallacy. It ought to be the purpose of our schools to educate in the strict sense of the term, to teach such subjects and in such a manner as will best develop the powers of the individual, i.e., not to prepare for any special occupation or profession, but for all. A properly framed curriculum would educate the lad to work in a shop, to begin a skilled trade, to enter the University, to keep books in an office, to teach a school, to work on the farm; or the girl to take any of those occupations suited to her sex, to keep house, become a seamstress, a stenographer or intelligent servant. No tradesman, or seamstress, or shop employee has any too much education who completes a course in the Collegiate Institute. It is true many parents are not able to keep their children at school for this length of time. This is a pity; it is their misfortune and the misfortune of their children. Those in all these walks of life are to be useful in church, in society, in public life, in all places that our democratic country offers them, and they are handicapped to the extent that they have not the culture represented by such a curriculum as the