E.—No. 3A.

No. 2. H. Tatloe, Esq., to the Hon. the Colonial Secbetaey. Sir,— Education Office, 25th June, 1866. I avail myself of your courteous permission to make some remarks upon Sir William Martin's studied defence of the Church of England Board of Native Education, first premising that it has failed in inducing me to retract a single exjjression from mv report which has been already laid before the General Assembly. On assuming office as Inspector of Native Schools, I was not instructed to hunt out obsolete official documents to guide me in discharge of my duties, nor did I myself consider it incumbent on me to do so. A copy of " The Native Schools Act, 1858," was placed in my hands by Mr. Sewell the AttorneyGeueral, with directions to see that its provisions were faithfully carried out; and in this Act I nowhere found mention of Diocesan Colleges, Training Schools, Educational Districts, &c, terms high-sounding and specious, and calculated to mislead ; but such terms were used as suited the educational status of the Native race at the time of the passing of the Act, and for the seven years it had to run; and it is, 1 suppose, because I did not allow my imagination to hurry me on to the advanced requirements of a highly civilized community, but took matters as I found them, that my ideas of a proper standard of a Public Educational Establishment are sneeringly reproved. It must afford me some consolation that the gentlemen who took part in the passing of the Native Schools Act have in like manner, I suppose, subjected themselves to the ridicule of the Native Education Board. It was under the direction of Mr. Bell, late Native Minister, that I examined into the terms of the trust under which the School Estate at Taurarua was held. The terms are enunciated in the Church Almanack issuing from the Cathedral Press, and quoted by Sir William Martin. In the copy of the deed of trust I nowhere found mention of any provision of any sort being made for the education of Native male and female adults at Taurarua, nor for the training of young men for the sacred office of the ministry. It was on this ground I stated in my report that the arrangements in existence at St. Stephen's, on the occasion of my visit of inspection, were not in accordance with the terms of the deed of trust. The land was given for a specific purpose, viz., for the use of and towards the support and maintenance of the children of Her Majesty's subjects of both races, and of children of other poor and destitute persons, &c, &c, but not for the preparation of Native adults for holy orders ; and Mr. Bell, I presume, in instituting the inquiry was anxious to devise some legitimate means for the education of this portion of the Native Race, and so remove all grounds of complaint against the administrators of the trust. I cannot, consistent with propriety, here quote Mr. Bell's opinion upon the merits of St. Stephen's as a Public Educational Establishment. That gentleman will not, lam sure, shrink from avowing it if called upon to do so in the House of Representatives ; but now that the Board has forced me into a defensive position, I may strengthen that position by quoting the opinion and testimony of Mr. Gorst, who had most ample opportunity for forming a correct judgment upon its merits, and who, when speaking his mind freely to me, as man to man, characterized St. Stephens "as a sham and a humbug." Many others, doubtless, could support me in this assertion, for he did not strive to conceal his opinion, and moreover gave the strongest of all proof of its defectiveness as a public educational institution, by his unwillingness to allow the youths he brought with him from Waikato, to be located there. And what is the grand cause of its failure ? Ido not hesitate to state that it is the assumption of authority by too many masters, and the want of a recognized head over the establishment. The Board of Native Education professes to its management. His Lordship the Bishop of New Zealand exercises perhaps an undue share of influence. The Rev. Mr. Chapman, in his unhappy anomalous position is vested with the semblance of power, and Government assumes to itself a right of interference and general supervision. These several elements do not harmonize, they sometimes come in contact, and facts might be adduced which prove a want of cohesion and unity of purpose on the part of the several managers and directors, and a decided lack of a well devised harmonious system which tends most materially to build up and strengthen any public institution, more especially an institution of an educational character. That the Board has failed in compassing that vast scope of educational labour which it originally projected is patent to all; that it was objectionable to the several managers of the schools over which it exercised control, I fearlessly assert; and that there was a something unpleasant or unsatisfactory to many of the members themselves, either in the composition of the Roard or in its method of conducting business, may be deduced from the fact that Mr. Swainson, a member of the Board, proposed in the Diocesan Synod in 1862 a series of resolutions, which, if acted upon, had a tendency to jeopardize the existence of the Board. The Rev. Mr. Burrowes, also a member of the Board, seconded these resolutions, and both these gentlemen, together with Venerable Archdeacon Maunsell, objected in the strongest terms to occupying a seat any longer at the Board. Their reasons they did not openly state, but I well remember the impression left upon the mind of myself and several other members of the Synod with whom I subsequently conversed, that they declined from a want of faith in the Board, or from some undefinable misgiving as to its efficiency and utility. The success which Sir William Martin arrogates for St. Stephen's cannot without a very considerable amount of reservation, be in strict justice accorded to it. The Native teachers and ordained ministers he refers to are not wholly the fruits of the educational training they have received within the walls of that institution, but are rather the happy results of his own private teaching and patient perseverance and devotedness in a noble cause. To him, and to one or two other gentlemen of equal zeal with himself, is by far the greater share of the credit due. I still maintain, however incompetent a judge I may be in such matters, that it reflects unfavourably upon the capacity of the trustees for the discharge of business involving a monied interest, that a property of such intrinsic value and so favourably circumstanced as those at Taurarua, should have remained so many years under their administration without yielding any income, and this too after an outlay of upwards of £300 for this special purpose; aud it is the more surprising that the Board did

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TO NATIVE SCHOOLS.