226 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



in the prosecution of their scholastic studies, and if well supported there 

 is little doubt that it will prove a valuable adjunct to the cause of 

 University work in the colony. 



Following the wake of the Invercargill Association, a similar 

 movement has been started in Oamaru under the title of the North 

 Otago Collegiate Classes Association. The conditions here are not so 

 favourable, as the district is much nearer Dunedin and the population is 

 smaller than that of Invercargill. The promoters have laid themselves 

 out to cover an extensive field of work including Latin, English, 

 German, French, Mathematics, Jurisprudence, and Political Economy. 

 The only question seems to be whether a sufficient number of students 

 will offer themselves to enable the classes to be continued. At the 

 start the encouragement has not been great. Towns like Napier and 

 Nelson offer better facilities for this kind of work than such a town as 

 Oamaru, and even Wellington might hasten the day when it will have 

 a properly equipped college of its own, were its educational enthusiasts 

 to band themselves into an organisation somewhat on the lines already 

 adopted by the Southern associations. What can be done in the way of 

 accomplishing good educational work by private (as opposed to State- 

 aided effort) is shown by the success attending the work of the Technical 

 Classes Association in Dunedin, which in this third year of its existence 

 has over three hundred voung men and women attending its classes. 



The Polynesian Society. — -An effort is being made in Wellington 

 to establish a Polynesian Society, the objects of which as set forth 

 in a preliminary circular are " to afford a means of communication, 

 co-operation and mutual criticism between those interested in, or 

 studying Polynesian anthropology, ethnology, philology, history, man- 

 ners and customs of the Oceanic races, and the preservation of all that 

 relates to such subjects in a permanent form." For the present it is 

 proposed to afford the means of communication by the publication of a 

 periodical journal, to be called the '•Journal of the Polynesian Society," 

 and it is believed that 250 members each subscribing 20s. a year, will 

 suffice to start the Society and carry on the publication. While 

 thoroughly sympathising with the feelings of the promoters and ready 

 to give what support lies in our power to their project, we cannot say 

 that we are sanguine of success to the venture. Our own experience is 

 that any enterprise of this kind is certain to be so poorly supported 

 that it will end in financial failure. We would recommend as a much 

 more feasible plan, and one mutually beneficial to all concerned, that 

 the Association be formed with half the proposed annual subscription 

 and that this Journal be the accredited Journal of the Society, until 

 the population of these southern seas justifies the specialisation now 

 proposed. In the case of this Journal we asked for a minimum of 200 

 subscribers : reference to a slip inserted in this number will show how 

 far the appeal has been met. — Edit. 



