Mr T. B. Gillies, the President of the Auckland Institute, in delivering an address to that society a few days ago, made the fol lowing remarks :—"lf: — "If there was one branch of elementary knowledge more than another ia which we were defective in New Zea land, it was that of the geography of our own Colony. They had two, he thought, small school books purporting to be geographies of New Zealand, and both miserably defective even where not positively erroneous. Our children were drilled into British geography rather into that of their own country. We found our newspaper editors constantly displaying the greatest ignorance on the geography of New Zealand, and they had no reliable book of reference to guide them. Here, he thought, was a department in which many of our members could give valuable contributions, which ere long could be built up into an authoritative and reliable Geography of New Zealand. It was pleasing to observe — whether owiug to the influence of their own and kindred societies he could not say — that physical science was rapidly becoming recognised as a subject of elementary education in the Colony. Not only was there iv the Otago University a Professor of Natural Science of no mean rank, but in several of the educa tional establishments affiliated with the New Zealand University there were lectures on chemistry, botany, and other branches of physics ; and it was pleasing to observe that popular lectures in some of our towDs on scientific subjects were attracting attention and drawing audiences. Those thiDgs pointed to the progress of the future, when the dry bones of history and the thrice-threshed straw of logic and philosophy would give place to the study of things capable of proof —of physical science."

"WEST HARBOUR ROAD.
