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We now append our remarks on each subject.

Reading and Conversation.-The reading in the upper part of the School was satisfactory; and in the lower fair, but it is scarcely a test to give boys a passage to read which they have already read so often that it has become quite familiar. We notice a tendency to disregard punctuation, to omit or slur over small words of great importance to the sense, and to confuse singulars and plurals, and past and present tenses. It struck us that the chief faults in reading were due to carelessness. In con- versation a few boys did well, many poorly. We hope that it will be found possible to increase the European Staff so that boys can learn to read and speak and write correctly. Much remains to be done before English colloquial can be said to hold its proper place as a subject of instruction in Queen's College.

Writing.-Marks for writing were awarded on the dictation exercises. This writing was eminently satisfactory, showing that almost every boy could write a good hand. Had the general work in other papers been marked for writing, there would have been less satisfaction. Boys often spoilt their work by carelessness, especially in the geography, grammar, and arithmetic papers; and it should be impressed upon them that in examination work there should be more uniformity of neatness. Inaccuracy of work and consequent loss of marks frequently resulted from untidiness.

Dictation. In the upper school, with the exception of IIc (Junior), the dictation was satisfac- tory. The other classes call for more particular remarks. After listening to Chinese masters giving dictation we were not surprised to find a number of words wrongly spelt; for example, in class VB, C, it was very common to see builts for builds, white for wide, consist for consists, family for firndly, this for these, which for each, and each for its. We are convinced that such mistakes as misserssion, cristinous, dissmisteres, mistrict, esmeid, which occurred in one class as spellings of one word would not have been made if the class had been dictated to by an English voice. In the majority of papers the spelling was fairly correct, but the mistakes, such as escaped for escape, begin for begins, and others equally careless, or showing an equal ignorance of syntax, were far too frequent. VIA,B,C, the punctuation was feeble; some boys showed intelligence, placing the commas correctly; but as a general rule they were omitted or put in promiscuously. In another class we heard the dictation given and were quite prepared to find it written for eat, and eat for it, rope and rogue confused, and teeth spelt tref. We give these instances, in no hypercritical spirit, but because we think them very important. The divisions of class VIII use two different reading books which appear to us to be of unequal standard. The work in VIIIc was absurdly easy and very well done. "Boys should be taught simple punctuation, not to divide monosyllables, and how to divide polysyllables.

Arithmetic.-Class IA,B, is very small, only 7 boys. Five of them did satisfactory work on a fairly difficult paper. In Ic., two boys, taking the same paper, did better than any boy in Ia, and the rest did well. Several papers in IIA were good, but the work was very uneven: although easy ques- tions were for the most part well done, there were many failures in the harder work. Class III does not compare favourably with the two higher classes. They showed weakness in fractions. Out of 47 boys in IIIA 28 did au example in vulgar fractions in the same way wrongly, and 29 could not do division of decimals correctly. Ic (Junior), who were examined with III, found the paper too difficult. The work of IV and IIc (Senior) was for the most part untidy, and mistakes were made in consequence of carelessness in writing. In the upper division of V vulgar fractions were fairly well done, but mistakes occurred by boys multiplying when they were asked to divide. In this class and IIc (Junior), who take the same work but do not seem to be up to the same standard, there was here and there a good paper; but on the whole the work was weak. Class VI was also disappointing, Class VII scarcely satisfactory, but the work of Class VIII was neat and promising.

Translation: English to Chinese.-Results in this subject show an improvement upon those of two years ago. The work of IIA, in which class all passed, deserves special mention. Throughout the School the work was well done. We noticed, however, in the lower school, that many boys mistook the meaning of simple English words; and in the upper School, especially in Ia, there was a tendency to go beyond mere translation by introducing phrases and even entire sentences which had little or nothing to do with the subject. This latter fault should be carefully guarded against. Chinese who are able to translate correctly often fail to do so because of a disposition to sacrifice accuracy to style. We would suggest that correct translation should be insisted upon as the only means of rendering this part of the work efficient.

Translation: Chinese to English-With a few exceptions in the upper School, there was no attempt at independent translation; the renderings being almost word for word those found in the printed translations. It is not possible to attach much value to the reproduction in examinations of translations learnt by heart; and we are of opinion that the only real test would be made by setting each class a sentence or two of "sight" translation, which should be simpler than the prepared exercises.

Grammar.-The Grammar of the upper school, with the exception of the three non-Chinese classes, was excellent. There was strong evidence of very careful teaching; and we were pleased to find that boys could compose short sentences correctly to illustrate particular points. The analysis of sentences was good. In the other classes the work was weak. Many papers were full of