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probable expenditure of the year for building purposes and repairs; while for Teachers' salaries, and in the hope of securing competent persons, I would specify the sum of £1500. With this increased expenditure, I believe the Schools might be materially improved in character, and made so attractive that the Natives in a short time would only be too glad to avail themselves of the benefits to be derived from such institutions. The present insufficient progress of the Schools may be traced to external and internal causes. Under the former head may be comprised— (a.) The Taranaki war. (6). The King movement, (c.) The demand for children's labor. (a.) In support of my statement as to the effects of the Taranaki war upon Native Schools, we have only to refer to Mr. Gorst's recent report upon the Waikato Schools. The Report bears date December, 1861. Mr. Gorst inspected 13 Schools, everyone of which number has suffered more or less from the effects of the war. (b.) The King movement has engendered such an amount of opposition to the Government that many of the Natives, as the Missionaries have informed me, positively refuse to send their children to the Schools, because they are supported by Government. A Roman Catholic School was recently established at Raugiawhia, to which some children were sent, on the express understanding that the School was not to receive any aid from Government. Assistance was tendered by Rev. B. Y. Ashwell on behalf of the Government to Roka's School on the Waikato, but declined, with regret "that she was not allowed by the King party to receive it." A similar offer of assistance was made by Mr.Gorst to Wm. Thompson, but scornfully rejected. c. The increased number of cattle aud horses now in the possession of the Maoris, and their unwillingness to put up proper and permanent fences, to protect their cultivations, have produced a demand for juvenile labour. Two of the Schools I recently inspected were considerably reduced in number from this cause. Under the head of internal causes of insufficient progress may be classed— fj. Insufficiency of food or clothing. b. Overworking the pupils, especially in Schools called " Industrial." c. Excessive punishment aud over strict discipline. d. Defective teaching. c. Uncomfortableness of Schools. a. It is most impolitic to restrict a Native in the matter of food: on this point he is very sensitive. It militates against his ideas of liberality and open-handed profuseness. b. I have but little confidence in the success of Industrial Schools, conducted as they are at present. The fagging system adopted in such schools is most distasteful to the Native, to whose natural independence the idea of labour obtained by compulsion is most revolting: besides they involve a great outlay aud produce no equivalent return. c. Corporal punishments and an over-rigid discipline have dove much to drive away many children from the schools. A punishment, which to us would appear by no means harsh, would to a Native seem cruel and excessive. As Native parents never inflict chastisement upon an offending child, our summary mode of dealing with young delinquents must seem strange and tyrannical. It would not be unwise in future to pay some little deference to their feelings in this respect. d. An inefficient Teacher is very soon detected by a Native, and in this respect, I believe, their perception is more acute than that of a European; when once a Teacher's inability is discovered, his prestige is lost, and the school is consequently injured. In proof of this assertion, I could cite, if necessary, one or two instanses. c. Under the head of uncomfortableness of Schools is to be classed want of light, ventillation, warmth, elbow-room and sitting accomodation. School-time at best is irksome, and if it is desirable to mitigate this irksomness by every reasonable contrivance, how much more to remove every aggravation of bodily discomfort; a comparatively slight expense would remove many discomforts, and make the school-room cheerfull and attractive. In carrying on the work of civilization among the aboriginal Native race, through the medium ol schools, some impediments to progress, which may be gradually overcome by a diligent course of training in our schools deserve comment: aud first and most serious of all, is that state of communism, in which all kinds of property are held amongst them. Their present social condition bears testimony to the ill-effects of such a system. Tribal rights destroy personal ownership, few among them can boast of owning an acre of laud as absolutely and wholly his own. In the same way, stock, houses, farm produce, and even the very children, are held as the common property of the tribe, with the exception of horses, perhaps, few attempts have been made by the Natives to individualize property. In the School-room by a careful and persevering system of appropriation we may gradually train them to a proper perception of and regard of the meum and tuum; but the results of such training will uot, I anticipate, develope themselves among the community for some generations to come, still we ought not to abandon the attempt, or give up, because success is doubtful and remote. The Native language itself is also another obstacle iv the way of civilization, so long as it exists there is a barrier to the free aud unrestrained intercourse whicii ought to exist between the two races, it shuts out the less civilized portion of the population from the benefits which intercourse with the more enlightened would confer. The School-room alone has power to break down this wall of partition between the two races Too much attention cannot be devoted to this branch of Maori education. The Natives themselves are most anxious on this point. At present in com-

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ON NATIVE SCHOOLS.