101

H.—2.

pipe through the roof was removed as well, and this opening had been allowed to remain all through the season when fires can be dispensed with, promoting ventilation certainly, but allowing the roof, floor, and furniture to be seriously damaged. Two cases of great want of consideration for the comfort of the school children deserves specially to be mentioned. In the important and largely-attended public schools in Oamaru, the School Committee declined to spend any of the money handed over to them for that express purpose on fuel, and the wholly uncalled-for hardship to which the school children were subjected was but partially and tardily relieved by the generosity of some liberal and kind-hearted citizens of the town. At the Inch A ralleyand Dunback schools very much the same sort of thing happened. It is with great regret that I feel compelled to refer so pointedly to the delays and neglect of some of the School Committees during tho past year. In many cases, no doubt, thoughtlessness, and ignorance of the inconvenience and discomfort their remissness causes, may account for the want of prompt attention ; but I sincerely hope that such things will not in future be considered any extenuation of neglect of apparently trifling, but really important, duties. Science.—Little or nothing has beeu done as yet in the direction of introducing science and history into the course of instruction. The want of a sufficient supply of suitable books will delay the general introduction of history for some time ; and the same difficulty will also impede tho introduction of science. Tho great extension of the subjects of instruction under the new Act has caused the teachers of small schools no little consternation. In the past they have found it no easy matter to teach their five or six classes the subjects formerly included in the school course, aud they do not see how it is possible to give efficient instruction in the work now required. I have, after mature consideration, been constrained in such cases to advise them to relax none of their attention to the fundamental branches of an English education—namely, reading, spelling, writing, arithmetic, and grammar and composition —and to do thereafter as great justice to the other subjects as the circumstances of their schools will permit. In small schools lam assured that it will be found impossible to do efficient work iv all the branches laid down, and it seems plain that efficient work in a smaller number of subjects is far preferable to a wider but shallower range of study. For schools where a large proportion of the work has to be done at the desks under the teacher's general superintendence, it appears to mo greatly to be regretted that a text-book in science of a simple and elementary character has not been prescribed. To meet this want I have recommended many teachers to try to take the senior pupils through Professor Balfour Siewart's Physics Primer, and to get them to have that little book as a text-book. In the absence of apparatus, without which all teaching of science is apt to be of little or no value, the illustrative figures will greatly aid the pupils in following ancl making themselves familiar with the principles of the subject. In the larger schools the science lessons can be more easily and more adequately overtaken, but here also some book in the hands of tho pupils appears indispensable, at least till apparatus is provided. The set of apparatus required for illustrating the Physics Primer costs about £19, a sum which teachers cannot be expected to spend for that purpose out of their own pockets. I would suggest that the Board should undertake to provide by degrees the apparatus necessary for teaching elementary physics. By way of beginning, twenty or thirty sets might be ordered from England, and the apparatus, together with a suitable press for their safe keeping, should be offered to Committees at half-price. 1 feel sure that many Committees would avail themselves of such ::n offer as this, and that thus and thus only can that portion of elementary science contained in Balfour Stewart's little book be efficiently and intelligently taught in our schools. By-and-by it might be found possible to add a set of chemical apparatus to that for physics, but to have provided the latter alone will be no mean or worthless beginning. Registration op Attendance, etc. —Ever since payments have been made to the Board on the basis of .average attendance, I have bestowed considerable pains on the examination of tho registers, and I have found them, with trifling exceptions, clearly marked and accurately computed. The registers now in use are very well adapted for the purpose, and afford teachers a ready means of checking the accuracy of their computation of attendances. I may here advert to the elaborate character of the returns required by the Education Department. Four times a year has a teacher to make a return of the number of pupils " under five years ; five, and under seven ; seven, ancl under ten ; ten, and under thirteen ; thirteen, and under fifteen ; above fifteen years." Three of these returns are quite useless, and the time and trouble spent in making them up are gratuitously added to the already onerous duties of head teachers. Four times a year has a teacher to make a return of the number of infants, of those preparing for Standard 1., Standard IL, Standard 111., Standard IV., Standard ~V., Standard VI., and passed Standard VI.; though the statistics for the year, published by the department, can require no more than one such return, that for the last quarter being usually the most suitable. Again, four times a year has a teacher to make a return of the number of pupils learning reading, writing, ainl the other ten subjects of the school course, although the return for one quarter only can be of service to the department. In addition to these returns, fifteen columns of figures, extracted with considerable trouble from tho registers, have to be filled up quarterly, merely to ascertain the strict average daily attendance, aud the working average. Of these fifteen columns some appear to me of no use in the world ; for instance, the answers to the following queries : " AVhat is the average weekly number on the roll during the quarter ?" and " What has beeu the largest attendance on any half-day this quarter?" The latter question in large schools is not at all easy to answer, for it compels the headmaster to make out and keep a daily summary of the attendance in all the departments of the school, a form for which should bo supplied by the department if this return is to be held necessary in future. There are other respects in which tho returns required by the department appear unnecessarily elaborate, but, as they may subserve some useful end, I refrain from saying anything about them. Quite recently steps have been taken to bring school savings-banks into operation, and in many cases it will be morally compulsory for the teachers to take charge of them. Any one who is acquainted with the requirements of the course of instruction laid down for the public schools, and who knows tho great and almost insuperable difficulty of overtaking it, cannot but deplore the numerous encroachments on a teacher's working time rendered inevitable by so many extraneous and secondary matters. The worst of it is that the transaction of all these unnecessary duties falls almost entirely on headmasters, whose time is so valuable,