824 
Eejjort of the Edtication Commiitee on 
4. The Examiner iu Agriculture, Mr. Primrose McConnell, B. Sc., 
reports that " the result this year is very much superior to that of 
former years : there are very few failures, while the average of 
marks obtained is very high, the honours being pretty evenly dis- 
tributed among three or four of the schools. This is gratifying when 
the fact is taken into consideration that the questions set refer as 
far as possible to the details of practice not usually found in books, 
so that the knowledge of these displayed indicates satisfactory 
progress, when compared with the vague replies I have often had on 
former occasions." 
5. Tlie E.Kaminer in Chemistry (Dr. J. Augu-stus Voelcker, B.A. 
B.Sc.) reports that " two papers were extremely good. Following 
these were seven very fair papers, but the remainder were inferior. 
The majority of the papers showed e\"idenee of particular points, 
such as formuhe, specific gravities, molecules of water t)f crj'stal- 
lisation, itc, having been 'got up ' very exactly, while many of the 
more elementary facts were unduly neglected." 
6. Tiie Examiner in ^lechanics and Xatural Philosophy, and in 
Mensuration and Land Surveying (the Rev. Professor Twisden, ]M. A.), 
reports that "the best work in the subject of Mechanics is not as 
good as the best work of last year, and a good deal of the work, as 
will be seen from the marks, is very poor. However, about a third 
of the papers show that the writers have some knowledge of the 
elements of the subject. Question 5 brought out a good deal of 
ignorance, but the question was well answered seven or eight times. 
Question 9 was well answered only three times, but this might, 
perhaps, have been expected. Question 10 was often not attempted, 
and was very seldom answered to any purpose. This was a weak 
point in the examination. A curious mistake was made a good 
many times, and by boys in more than one school, viz. the same 
body was said to be acted on by gravity and by its own weight, as 
if these were two distinct and separate forces, e.g. in some answers 
to the fourth question, Q was said to be acted on (1) by its own 
weight ; (2) by gravity." 
7. In Mensuration and Land Surveying, Professor Twisden 
raports that "the marking is proportionately much higher than in 
Mechanics, and on the whole the work is very fairly gooA and 
accurate. I may mention particularly that question 6, which 
i'esem>)les a question ill done last year, was well done in many cases. 
Question 1 was in most cases understood. In question 2 very few 
found the area with a reasonable degree of accuracy, and many did 
not find it at all. It may be well to notice that the question 
requires the area to be found from the triangle that has been 
previously drawn. This direction was seldom attended to. The 
length of the third side was taken from the drawing, so that the 
three sides were known, and from them the area was calculated by 
the well-known formula. This method involves a very long calcu- 
lation, and therefore is very liable to error. In fact, the result was 
