XVili. PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 
at least when compared with similar elementary courses 
of study elsewhere. In addition to our elementary State 
schools, we have several other schools called Grammar 
Schools in six of the principal towns. These are not worked 
by the Education Department, but each is under its own 
Trustees, gets an endowment from the Government and 
establishes what courses of study it pleases. That the work of 
the Grammar Schools is well up to that of similar institutions 
in the Southern States we all know, and it is shown by the 
results of the Sydney University senior and junior exam- 
inations. Unfortunately the Grammar Schools, not being 
under the control of the Education Department, are doing 
a good deal of the work that is also done in the State Schools, 
and so are not proper continuation schools. As they aim 
Jargely at preparing students for the Universities they have 
perforce to retain the ancient classical learning as one of 
the principal parts of the school curriculum. We have no 
higher education provided than is supplied by the 
Grammar Schools. 
In another direction, education here has been 
struggling along under difficulties. Some years ago, in 
several of the larger towns, institutions called Technical 
Colleges were established, to encourage which the pupils’ 
fees were subsidised to an equal amount by the Govern- 
ment. This subsidy has in the last few lean years been 
considerably reduced. In quite a number of the colleges 
no applied science whatever is taught. Such colleges 
are merely commercial schools where shorthand, type- 
writing, and probably dressmaking covers the entire 
number of subjects. In one or two of the larger colleges 
attempts have been made to establish physical and 
chemical laboratories, but the lack of funds has prevented 
any of the college authorities, however much they wish it, 
from establishing well-fitted physical or chemical labora- 
tories or engineering workshops. Great credit is deserved 
by those who, in the face of all difficulties, have established 
such laboratories as we have now. While the name Tech- 
nical College has perhaps no definite meaning, the Technical 
Colleges of Queensland, except in the case of a very few 
classes, do not reach the standard of the secondary science 
schools of England and Scotland. Apart from these 
