A lecture delivered by Professor Main-waring Brown on the 13th April, 1885; the president (Mr A. Burt) in the chair.

Professor Brown said: There is a general agreement that technical education is a very important thing, but unfortunately there is an equally general feeling of uncertainty as to what technical education is. The cause of this uncertainty is that the phrase is used to express two distinct systems—]. That of teaching handicrafts in schools, the pupils being taught the practical use of tools; and the necessity of apprenticeship being to at any rate some considerable extent done away with. 2. That of supplementing the practical knowledge gained in the workshop by instruction in the principles of drawing, chemistry, applied mechanics, and other arts and sciences, a knowledge of which is necessary to the thorough mastery of particular trades. In this paper I propose (1) to give a summary, drawn from the reports of the English Royal Commissioners on Technical Instruction, of what the most advanced nations have done in both these branches of teaching; and (2) to compare the facilities for learning trades in Dunedin with those that are offered by the leading centres of industry.