To summarize very briefly the work of the Conference, it recognized in the first place the importance of the vernaculars as the proper medium for instruction in the lower stages of education, whilst maintaining the supremacy of English in the higher stages. It sought to give a more practical character to high-school training by promoting the "modern side," hitherto overshadowed by a mainly literary curriculum, and it endeavoured to make the school courses self-sufficing and self-contained instead of merely a stepping-stone to the University courses. To this end secondary schools were encouraged to give more importance to School Final Examinations as a general test of proficiency and not to regard their courses as almost exclusively preparatory to the University Entrance Examination. Great stress was also laid upon the improvement of training colleges for teachers as well as upon the development of special schools for industrial, commercial, and agricultural instruction. Nor were the ethics of education, altogether forgotten in their bearings upon the maintenance of healthy discipline. Government emphasized the great importance of a large extension of the system of hostels or boarding-houses, under proper supervision, in connexion with colleges and secondary schools, as a protection against the moral dangers of life in large towns; and whilst provision was made for the more rigorous inspection of schools to test their qualifications both for Government grants-in-aid and for affiliation to Universities, certain reforms were also introduced into the constitution and management of the Universities themselves.