98. Grade Promotions.-The Regulations will fix a scale snowing the number of satisfactory reports required to entitle a teacher to be raised from one division of a class to the next higher division of the same class.

99. Promotion of Teachers.-The reports are to be dealt with by the Under Secretary, the General Inspector and the Senior District Inspector, for the time being, who will report, in the first instance separately, and then jointly after conference, to the Minister, recommending the teachers they consider entitled to grade promotion.

100. Inspectors' Reports.-It is proposed in future to send to the teachers the whole of the Inspector's Report except "Remarks on Staff" and "Special Observations."

101. Staffing of Schools.-The scale on which schools are staffed is defined. 102. Pupil Teachers.-The condition of the old Regulation, No. 41, requiring candidates for admission as pupil teachers of any class except the lowest to obtain over 60 per centum of marks on all the examination papers is to be abolished. To ensure that the period of training shall not be unduly curtailed, no candidate for employment as pupil teacher shall be appointed to any class higher than the second. No one is to be examined for the status of pupil teacher of the Third or of the Fourth Class unless employed as a pupil teacher of the grade next below that sought. No candidate shall be examined for appointment as pupil teacher who has not reached the age of thirteen years.

103. Returns.-Monthly and half-yearly returns are to be substituted for the present weekly and quarterly returns.

104. Fines are to be imposed for errors in returns and for want of punctuality in forwarding them.

105. Cleaning Allowances.-The allowances to be granted in the different schools for cleaning the school buildings are to be defined by regulation.

106. Local Subscriptions. The proportion of local contributions required for each of the different improvements is specified in detail.

107. Minor Requisites.-These are to be provided by the Department, and contributions from parents towards obtaining minor requisites are not to be collected in future.

108. Change of School Readers.-Teachers, inspectors, and, finally, the Revising Committee, have recommended a change in the series of reading books. I purpose introducing the series of Royal Readers (Nelson and Son's Victorian Edition), together with Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the Century Readers (Blackie and Son) to take the place of the present series of reading books as soon as practicable.

109. Examination for Class II.-At the head of the schedule to the Regulations containing the standards of the classification of teachers (Schedule VII.) stands the following note:-"Candidates for Class II. who fail in any one of the following subjects:-Arithmetic, 'geography, grammar, needlework, and the alternative subject (mathematics or Latin), or who fail in any three other subjects, will not be promoted without further examination." For some ten years past the last clause of the foregoing rule has been interpreted to mean that a candidate who obtains 50 per centum of the maximum number of marks obtainable, but fails in any of the "failing subjects" must be again examined in all the subjects of the schedule. It is thought that this interpretation makes the conditions of a pass into Class II. unduly difficult, and the Inspectors' Conference, as well as the Revising Committee, recommend that it be relaxed so that candidates who have made over 50 per centum of the marks obtainable shall not be required to sit again for examination in any of the subjects in which they have passed.

Accordingly examinees whose failure in past years is due to the operation of the above clause, as heretofore interpreted, have been notified that by passing in the subjects in which they failed at their last examination they will be eligible for admission as teacher of Class II.

TECHNICAL

TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

110. The committee of the Technical College in connection with the Brisbane School of Arts receives a grant of £600 for technical education. This amount has been voted annually for some years past, and has been judiciously spent. The committee's report for the year 1889 shows very satisfactory progress and an increasing public interest in technical education. The committee have done all that was possible with the small amount available, but with the exception of a class for carpentry, they could not initiate trade classes. The work is carried on as a branch of the School of Arts, and is not under Ministerial control. The sum of £1,000 has also been paid to the committees of the Schools of Arts at Maryborough, Bundaberg, Rockhampton, and Townsville (£250 each) to enable the committees to introduce technical education. These classes are being started in connection with the different Schools of Arts.

Committees of other Schools of Arts in the country towns have lately asked that sums should be placed on the next Estimates to allow them to start classes.

The committee of the Brisbane School of Arts have asked that the sum voted to them for technical education annually should be increased from £600 to £1,200, or £2 for every £1 contributed or paid in fees, and that a sum of £4 for every £1 contributed by the public to a building fund should also be paid by the Government.

The question therefore of technical education must and should be faced, and I am strongly of opinion that a State system of technical education should be initiated, and that it should be carried on under the control of the Minister for Education. If we intend our workers, who form the large majority of our adult population, to compete with those in other countries, we must provide them with the same facilities for acquiring a knowledge of the sciences and arts bearing on their trades.

Professor Huxley long ago expressed the opinion that so surely as ancient Carthage decayed, so would Great Britain decay and lose her place among the nations unless she rivalled the work done on the Continent in technical education.

A technical college could be started in Brisbane, and branches established in the different parts of the colony, working under the Department and under the guidance of the staff appointed to the college here, utilising the facilities afforded by the existing Schools of Arts in order to avoid a duplication of work.

This has been found to work well in New South Wales, and although the plan favours centralization, I feel that the classes must be so started in the first instance in order to succeed. In the meantime a suitable building should be provided by the Government for a Technical College, and as soon as it is erected the vote for technical education should be increased so as to enable the Committee or Board to start classes for imparting practical instruction to those engaged in the different trades. Children over 13 years of age who have attended State Schools or who are attending any State School and are desirous of learning a trade should receive a certificate authorising the holder to attend the classes of the college free of charge for three years.

Technical Education, as it is now generally understood, applies principally to instruction in those sciences which have a direct bearing on manufacturing industries, and the principles which underlie mechanical and manipulative trades; and in organizing a State system of technical education, the instruction should chiefly be directed to such subjects as would cause the education imparted to be of advantage to the working population of the colony, and should be specially directed to agriculture and to "the useful and mechanical arts practised by tradesmen."

Technical education receives special attention in all civilized countries at the present day. In all the important European countries the different Governments are devoting great attention to the subject, and voting large sums to enable those engaged in the trades, or intending to do so, to obtain free technical instruction.

The

The Governments of the adjoining colonies have also given this important subject earnest attention.

In South Australia the Government have decided to start a system of technical education, and in 1889 the Parliament voted a sum of £2,600 for the Adelaide Technical College. The Government also handed over to the Committee the use of the eastern annexe of the Exhibition Building, in which class-rooms are provided and the exhibits constituting the nucleus of a Technological Museum are displayed. The Committee or Council consists of twelve members-six nominated by the Government; one by the governing body of each of the following institutions:-The University, the Public Library, the Museum, the Art Gallery, the Chamber of Manufactures; and one by the Trades and Labour Council.

In Victoria, for the year ending June, 1889, the Parliament of Victoria granted in aid of Schools of Mines, Design, and Technical Schools generally, the sum of £26,100; and for the current year the amount of £33,600 has been voted.

At the annual meeting of the Gordon College at Geelong on the 21st January, 1890, Professor W. C. Kernot (Melbourne University), said :

"It was being found out now that the young people required technical education, and the public "desired to furnish them with it. All workmen required the technical education, and he believed the "public generally would see the necessity of lending a more helping hand than at present. There was a large scope for scientific knowledge in carpentering, plumbing, blacksmiths' work, &c. Science in "trades was absolutely necessary, and it was to the interests of the people to encourage it."

At the same meeting Mr. T. H. Bromley (President, Trades Hall Council, Melbourne), stated that:

66

"He was an artisan, and therefore a representative of the working classes. No question more concerned the working man than that of technical education. At the commencement of the agitation "for technical education people sneered at the idea, and did not think that the people would avail them"selves of the great advantages offered. The wonderful progress made, however, had shown the public "that the working men were eager to grasp the opportunities of educating themselves, as was shown by "the figures he had produced. In the second term of the Working Men's College, in 1887, there were "646 students, and at the end of 1889 the numbers had increased to 2,269. They wanted given to the young people good art-training-that training should be to teach the artisan the science "of the articles which were to be made."

In New South Wales special attention has been devoted to technical education from 1873 to the present day. The matter has been steadily growing in public favour, and in 1887 the Minister for Public Instruction in his Report foreshadowed the reorganization, as then proposed, of the whole system in New South Wales under the Educational Department.

The system of technical education in New South Wales, started by a board subsidised by the Government, was taken over by the Department of Public Instruction on the 1st of November, 1889, and is now under the control of the Minister.

A Superintendent of Technical Education has been appointed, under whose. supervision the system is being reorganised and extended.

The following sums have been voted by the Parliament of New South Wales for 1890 for technical education:

In addition to the above, £50,000 has been placed upon the Loan Estimates for the erection of a Technical College.

I find from the Report of the Sydney Technical College for 1889 that classes are held in the following subjects, viz.: Agriculture, veterinary science, wool-sorting, mechanical drawing with machine construction, applied mechanics, blacksmithing, pattern-making, plumbing, boiler-making, fitting and turning, architecture, carpentry and joinery, bricklaying, masonry, cabinet-making, carriage-building; geometry, model-drawing, freehand-drawing, design, modelling, house-painting, house-decorating, chemistry, photography, book-keeping, caligraphy and correspondence, phonography, actuarial science, German, French, Latin, elocution, domestic economy, cookery, scientific dress-cutting, tailors' cutting, mineralogy, geology, mining, algebra, trigonometry, technical arithmetic, pharmacy, materia medica, pharmaceutical chemistry, dispensing, anatomy and physiology, dentistry, physics, electricity, and telegraphy.

Without

Queensland
University.

Without proper buildings and a sufficient money vote many of these classes cannot be introduced into our colony.

The Government vote in New South Wales for 1887 was £16,971 15s. 7d. (rents paid alone amounting to £3,336 1s. 2d.), but with this sum of £16,971 15s. 7d. the college was carried on in Sydney, and branches were established and carried on at Grafton, Newcastle, Lambton, West Maitland, Singleton, Petersham, Granville, Parramatta, Bathurst, Goulburn, Morpeth, Kogarah, Paddington, and Glen Innes.

The reports as to the proved benefits of the education to those who attended the classes are most satisfactory, and warrant the Government in extending the system and providing suitable buildings at the expense of the State.

In the report for 1888, referring to the attendance at the classes in New South Wales, I find the following passage:-" It will thus be seen, of the 2,077 students who attended the Technical College, 1,556 were Australasian born, evidencing that the colonial youth largely avail themselves of the advantages of the institution."

Our system of primary education is open to all; and to those who excel in our schools we grant scholarships to the Grammar schools (which we also endow), and exhibitions to a university; thus providing at the expense of the State for the higher education of our best boys. This stimulus to higher education it is to be hoped the State will continue.

Looking at what the State has done for technical education beyond the primary education (so heartily voted by the State), we find that £600 a year has been granted for seven years to the Brisbane School of Arts, and £1,000 to the rest of the colony-a total sum of £5,200.

Since the necessity for technical education is becoming universally admitted, the justice of the claim for further expenditure must also be admitted.

It has been urged that this technical education can be taught in connection with a university, but in the other colonies and in other countries the systems are carried on entirely apart.

Speaking on the question of imparting the necessary instruction, Sir Philip Magnus, the Director of the City and Guilds of London Institute for the advancement of Technical Education, in an address delivered at the opening of the Finsbury Technical College, said :

"It must be remembered, in considering this difference of method, that the main purpose of the teaching to be given in this institution is not to make scientific men, nor to train scientists, as the "Americans call them, but to educate technikers, as the Germans say, to explain to those preparing for "industrial work, or already engaged in it, the principles that have a direct bearing upon their occupation, "so that they may be enabled to think back from the processes they see to the causes underlying them, "and thus substitute scientific method for mere rule of thumb. Indeed it is now generally recognised that technical teachers must be familiar with the processes of the factory or work"shop. The teacher who is to inspire confidence in his artisan students must address "them in the language they understand, and must show that he is not beyond appreciating practical "difficulties which occur to them in their daily work. Dr. Siemens further tells us "that theory and practice are so interdependent that an intimate union between them is a matter of "absolute necessity for our future progress,' and certainly none are more alive to the truth of this "proposition as regards educational progress than artisan students."

.

A QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY.

111.-The establishment of a Queensland University is desired by all those who take an interest in education, and our system is undoubtedly incomplete without this boon to enable those young men and women who do well in our State and Grammar schools to continue their studies without leaving the colony.

The advantages to be derived by founding a university in our colony must be acknowledged, and some step should be taken to establish a university as soon as possible. I think that, in addition to any other course adopted to obtain what is desired, portions of the public lands of the colony should at once be set apart for the

purpose.

APPENDICES.

APPENDICES.

113. The tables which follow this Report show in detail the operations of the Department during the year.

The following is a list of the Appendices:

Report of the General Inspector.

Report of the General Inspector's visit to the schools and educational departments of the Southern colonies.

Reports of the District Inspectors.

Examination papers given in December, 1889, to candidates for Grammar School Scholarships, and to teachers and pupil teachers of all grades. Notes by the Examiners on the answers to questions given in the Examination papers of 1889, intended to be of use to students and teachers in preparing themselves or others for similar examinations. Examination papers given to competitors for Exhibitions to Universities in November, 1889.

Department of Public Instruction, 17th June, 1890.

[L.S.]

CHAS. POWERS.

STATISTICAL