17 



and periodicals are provided. The rooms are fairly successful, but the 

 school furniture and the difficulty of storing chairs and tables for read- 

 ing purposes prevent anything like a complete success. 



The attendances are as follows : — 1892. i89i. 



Atten- Averafje Atten- Average 

 dance. per night. dance. per night. 



Chatsworth Stieet Board School 28,215 92 29,770 97 



Queen's Road Board School 19.246 62 18,8.14 62 



Stanley Koad Boa.d School 37,050 121 32.970 109 



Wellington Road School.. 24,747 80 26,275 87 



Totals 109,258 355 107,869 355 



FREE LECTURES. 



Free Lectures have now for a period of 28 years formed part— and in 

 their results a most important part— of the educational work carried on 

 in connection with these institutions. They were originally the happy 

 idea of Mr. Alderman Samuelson, who as long as he remained a member 

 of the Library Committee gave the lecture work his cordial support. 

 The small Lecture Hall of the Brown Library formed a suitable place 

 to give them in, so long as they remained in the nature of school or 

 college scientific lectures, and were given in long series, illustrated for 

 the most part by objects and specimens from the museum. But with the 

 growth of the modern popular lecture illustrated by photographic views 

 through the medium of a lantern, and on subjects which appealed to the 

 le^s studious and did not require note-book and pencil or close attention, 

 the attendances have grown from some 200 at each lecture to as many 

 as 1,600. The success of these lectures, from the attendance point, is due 

 to the Great Hall under the Picton Reading Room which affords 

 accommodation for such large numbers. 



The object of the Committee by the lectures is to stimulate the 

 reading of useful and instructive books by all who choose to attend them, 

 and, especially, to enable artizans and labourers to acquire some knowledge 

 of science, history, and geography, through the attractive means of 

 pleasant talks, illustrated by means of experiments or the lime light. 

 That the Committee's object is fully achieved, the 28,518 persons who 

 have attended the 31 lectures during last Winter bears full witness. The 

 two largest attendances during this series were 1,578 for a lecture on the 

 " Destruction of Pompeii ;" and 1,408 at one entitled " A Tour in 

 Morocco." In all cases lectures descriptive of home or foreign travel 

 attract the greatest audiences, and strictly scientific lectures the least. 

 The average attendance for the whole of the series was 920. 



