E.—IB

20

were found to be amongst the most irregular attendants at their respective schools. Eelief, however, was at length afforded by the appearance of the new edition of the standards issued by the department during the past year, which contains what may be regarded as an authoritative interpretation of their true meaning and intention. Encouraged by this, some of the teachers proceeded to do what they had all along felt to be desirable in the true interests of their pupils, and announced their intention of withholding certain children from presentation at the then forthcoming examination. This was the cause of the numerous complaints alluded to above ; and although the attention of the aggrieved was directed to the explanatory note affixed to clause 2 of the regulations, and its applicability to most of the cases pointed out, few of them could be prevailed upon to abandon their cherished belief in the injustice and neglect of the teachers. I have always been of opinion that, if the Government standards are to have a fair and impartial trial, the difficulties inherent in them (according to the belief of many) should not be removed or mitigated by too easy an interpretation of their requirements, but, on the contrary, that the utmost which could be fairly presumed to be intended by the compilers should be required at the annual examinations, so that the defects and difficulties, if any exist, might be the more speedily discovered and remedied. The following quotation from Mr. O'Sullivan's report for 1879 is inserted as giving expression in very forcible terms to a similar opinion : " If the system of standards is to be prevented from becoming an organized hypocrisy, the most demoralizing of all shams, all Inspectors must be instructed to pass only those who can pass with ease in the three higher standards at all events." These opinions are sustained in the notes attached to the standards as recently reissued, which, though containing much that might have been omitted, may 3 ret, as a whole, be regarded as a great assistance and support to those for whose guidance they were intended. Acting, therefore, upon the convictions to which I have given expression above, and believing that the relief afforded, more especially by the interpretation of clause 2 before referred to, would be taken advantage of more generally than appears to have been the case, I purposely made the examination of the upper standards at the larger schools somewhat more difficult than heretofore. The increased difficulty, however, was not great, being confined chiefly to arithmetic and grammar, and was of itself quite insufficient to account for the falling-off which I have this year to report. Other and far more powerful influences have been at work, and to some of these I will now refer. Irregularity of attendance is perhaps the greatest enemy to school-work with which we have to contend, and, although it has often been referred to in reports, and its evil effects deplored over and over again, yet the persons most immediately interested appear to regard the matter with supreme indifference. Unfortunately the evil is by no means confined to the irregular scholars themselves, but exerts its baleful influence on each and every scholar in the district. It is evident that, when many of the children of a school or class are habitually irregular, the reappearance of absentees compels the teacher to go again and again over old ground, and thus retards the general progress of even the regular scholars. The (working) average attendance for the latter half of the year 1881 amounted to only 75 per cent, of the average weekly roll-number, but this does not convey a correct idea of the effect of irregularity upon the general results in the district. A better view will be obtained by looking at the percentage of the number examined who have been irregular in their attendance at each school, which is shown in the following table :—

As in past years, I assume that anything under 300 half-days may be regarded as an irregular attendance, so that some notice must be taken of the interval which separates two annual examinations, which varies considerably, from as much as fourteen months in the cases of Waitangi, Okarito, and G-illespie's to ten months in that of Hokitika. It is exceedingly discouraging to notice the steady and alarming increase in the number of these irregular attendants during the last three years. In 1879 the number recorded as " irregular and failed " was nearly 2 per cent, of the number examined, in 1880 the number rose to 47 per cent., and in 1881 they reached 1127 per cent. These figures are exclusive of numbers who, though irregular, yet managed to pass the standards in which they were

Schools. .1 M m CM Schools. . a fi Mo a3 d g 3-rey mouth rlokitika 250 226 161 160 68 68 52 77 51 33 21 36 30 27 30 15 6 32 65 146 69 88 28 22 26 40 13 6 3 21 5 16 10 5 5 4 20 05 43 55 41 32 50 52 20 18 14 58 17 59 88 88 815 12 Marsden Maori Grully No Town Ahaura Orwell Creek ... TotaraFlat "Westbrook Upper Kokatahi Lower Kokatahi Waitangi Okarito G-illespie's Arawata Town ... Arawata Flat ... South Spit Kynnersley 11 23 20 10 22 22 G 2 G 8 14. 19 10 22 13 33 2 3 No re 3 3 7 5 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 18 14 13 iumara ioss Stafford loldsborough £anieri Brunnerton 3obden turn 30 14 32 83 0 0 0 14 0 0 0 0 35 Paroa Woodstock 31uespur Donoghue's flatter's Terrace... Greenstone Jpper Crossing ... DuDganville Totals ... 1,587 615 387