490 REPORT—1890. 
It will be seen that there is a considerable increase in Mechanics A, 
due, no doubt, to the fact that this subject has been the one selected by 
some of the largest School Boards in the kingdom to be taught by their 
peripatetic science demonstrators. There has also been a marked pro- 
portionate increase in Botany over the last two years. Algebra and 
Domestic Economy have about held their own, while Animal Physiology, 
Chemistry, and Magnetism and Electricity show a considerable actual 
decrease. 
The general result has been that the very serious annual decrease in 
the percentage of children taught these specific subjects as compared with 
the number that might have taken them has been arrested, or rather shows 
a fractional improvement. 
In 1882-3 . ; : ° é . 29-0 per cent. 
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Tue New Cope. 
The principal feature of this year has been the introduction of a code 
of regulations by the Education Department which makes many reforms 
in education, some of which refer to the teaching of science. The Code 
was generally accepted by both sides of the House of Commons. 
This Code provides that science and manual instruction are recognised 
subjects ‘in making up the minimum time constituting an attendance 
. . whether or not they are given in the school premises or by the 
ordinary teachers of the school, provided that special and appropriate pro- 
vision . . . is made for such instruction.’ This gives official sanction to 
the teaching of these subjects in centres, or by the peripatetic system. 
It does away with the restriction, of which your Committee have so 
long complained, that if class subjects be taken in a school, one of them 
must be English—an arrangement that virtually excluded the teaching of 
Elementary Science. 
There is, however, the restriction that specific subjects cannot be 
taken unless the larger of the two principal grants was obtained at the 
preceding inspection. This is objectionable, as it is often in those very 
schools where literary excellence is difficult to attain that a knowledge 
of Mechanics, or the Principles of Agriculture, or Domestic Economy would 
be most valuable; and these could not be taken, unless, indeed, as class 
subjects. 
In the appendix are inserted the new schedule of Elementary Science, 
and the alternate courses for that subject and for Geography. In the 
arrangement of these three members of your Committee were more or 
less consulted. It will be seen that the model course of Elementary 
Science in Schedule II. is made complete, and that several alternate 
courses are suggested which are essentially the specific subjects of 
Schedule IV. extended over five years, with object lessons bearing upon 
each subject for the two preceding years. It will be seen also that in 
the alternate courses for Geography the first is especially physical, the 
second specially commercial, while the third runs through only the first 
four standards, and the fourth is arranged to be taught in three divisions 
