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35. The chief difficulty of the boys has been in separating the general from the particular. "The proper ventilation of a room consists in having an open space at the rear as ordered by the Sanitary Board," and so forth. It is gratifying to observe the respect in which that Body is held, yet from an educational point of view a breach of its bye-laws must not be confused with defiance of a natural law. The value of a safe in keeping food clean is usually appreciated, but that of cook- ing does not appear so obvious, nor the use of clothing, nor the comparative advantages of different materials and different kinds of food,

BOOK-KEEPING.

36. The best of the papers done on book-keeping by Class I may be classed as fair to good. The paper set, easy as it is, was beyond many of the boys in I B, or at any rate if they knew the answers to the questions they were quite unable to express them intelligibly. The last question, a mechanical one, was generally well answered. Questions 3 and 4 were very indifferently answered, shewing that the boys possess only a vague or erroneous idea of every-day business transactions. There is however an improvement as compared with last year.

MATHEMATICS.

37. In marking the papers on mathematics allowance was made for sums worked on right lines, or if a mere slip occurred in working; except where the sums were in simple rules, as in the arithmetic of Classes VIII and VII.

38. In the LowWER SCHOOL. Arithmetic is the only branch of this subject that is taught.

39. Class VIII. The boys who have had three or four months' teaching can do numeration and notation, but fail in simple multiplication and division.

40. Class VII. A number of boys were selected for examination from the three Divisions. The questions set were very simple. VII A were right in about two sums out of three, and VII B and C in about half the sums. Had the boys understood the wording of the problems the percentage would have been much higher.

41. We noticed that while Class VII spend much of their time on problems involving English money, many boys in Division C had only a slight idea of the dollar value of the shillings and guineas which they manipulate so readily, and a very vague idea of what these coins look like.

42. Class VI. Divisions A, B and C were examined together. In Division A about half the work was right, at least in method; in Division B about one-fifth only, and in Division C about one-third of the sums were worked upon right lines. Division D was examined with Class VII on the previous year's work. The results were very good, about four-fifths of the work being right.

43. In Class V the results were most disappointing. Out of five sums set to each of 48 boys-240 sums in all-less than one-fifth were worked correctly or on right lines. There was little to choose between the Divisions.

44. In Class IV the different Divisions did about equal work. In all, 48 boys worked 36 sums correctly and 16 more were allowed as being worked on right lines. This was out of a total of 240 sums. Though better than that of Class V this is a poor record. The usual eclipse of common sense during examination occurred. It is to be wished that the boys could be taught, after they have finish- ed a problem, to read through the question and their answer and then ask them- selves, "Is this sense or nonsense? Then we should not have calculations proving that it takes many thousand years-or alternatively an hour-to make a circuit of Hongkong. Were a little more thought used, a slip in a decimal point might at once be discovered and corrected.

45. UPPER Schoon. Class III was examined in Arithmetic and Algebra.

46. In Arithmetic results were fairly equal in the three Divisions, being if anything better in Divisions B and C than Division A. The result was that 33 sums were passed as right out of a paper of 5 sums set to thirty boys, or about 22 %-