23

E.—lb

Singing is as usual practised in the infant classes of the principal schools; and vocal music is carefully taught to all classes at Hokitika, Ross. Kumara, Stafford, and Cobden, but necessarily shared in the general depression, and was, in my opinion, less satisfactory throughout than in former years. Schools ttndeb the 88tii Clause. —The large proportion of very small schools in this district has long been a cause of financial embarrassment to the Board, but I fear that this is only a minor evil connected with their existence. In some cases at least it may be doubted whether, as at present conducted, they are not worse than useless, since the fact of their children "going to school" more or less regularly beguiles parents into the belief that they are participating in the full advantages of the Government system of education, whereas the education (?) they are actually receiving is of the most meagre kind, and in not a few instances will leave them with much to unlearn, and with very little that will be permanently beneficial to them. It was presumed, when the provisions of the 88th clause were made to apply to the schools referred to, that they would be, as the Act contemplates, really " aided " schools, and that the inhabitants, for whose benefit they were established, would supplement the amount granted by the Board by local contributions towards the teachers' salaries; but with hardly a single exception they have not only failed to do so for any length of time, but have required and received grants for the purposes of cleaning and warming the school-buildings, and in some cases have even failed to give that amount of support and encouragement which is in their power by causing their children to attend school with regularity and punctuality. It must not, however, be supposed that I attribute the failure of some of these schools solely to the apathy of the inhabitants of the districts concerned. In too many cases I fear there has been want of the power and not of the will to contribute to the maintenance of the school, and that the absence of the indirect support is to be set down, in some cases, to the appointment of persons as teachers entirely unfitted for the position, and perhaps in other respects unable to secure the confidence of the parents. But persons who are moved by such considerations to withhold their children from the school should reflect that by so doing they are adopting the surest way of perpetuating the evils they perhaps justly deplore, as they diminish the resources of the Board, and thus deprive it of the power of making more satisfactory arrangements for their requirements. It is a question well worthy of tho attention of the Legislature whether small schools in isolated situations are not deserving of some special consideration, in view of the by no means trilling service they render towards the settlement of the waste places of the colony. There is no doubt that the establishment of these little schools (when fairly well conducted) does much to reconcile intelligent parents to the undertaking of settlement in places far removed from all the other advantages of civilization. In this district I know of families who are induced to continue their struggle to make for themselves homes in the wilderness partly by the fact of their not being entirely out of the reach of the means of at any rate laying the foundation of their children's education. Indeed, I know of one man who removed with his family to the other side of the Island chiefly because there was no school near enough for his children to attend, but who has since returned in consequence of the establishment of one of these schools in the neighbourhood. If, therefore, the settlement of the remote districts of the colony is considered worthy of encouragement, anything which tends to promote the object is surely entitled to some special recognition from the powers that be. But while the grass is growing the steed is starving, and it therefore behoves us to try what we can do to help ourselves in the meantime. The one great obstacle to the usefulness of these schools is the utter impossibility of obtaining the services of properly-qualified persons to take charge of them for the miserable pittance which the circumstances of the district compel the Board to dole out to the teachers. The consequence is that in too many cases the services of persons, in other respects very worthy, but quite unfit for the work, are, of necessity, accepted if the schools are to be kept open ab all. A partial remedy for this evil might be found in tho plan I am now about to propose for your consideration. The Board, having decided to dispense with the services of all the pupil-teachers who have completed their terms of service at the larger schools, can at once provide some of them with situations which, though imposing greater responsibilities upon them, will at all events furnish them with employment at the rate of payment which they would have received if retained as junior assistants in their own schools, and I am confident that, notwithstanding their youth and comparative inexperience, they are, in the majority of cases, capable of far more satisfactory work than are many of the present holders of the positions alluded to. I am fully alive to the obstacles which stand in the way of the adoption of this plan, the greatest of which, perhaps, is the natural objection with which the friends of these young persons will view their removal from their homes to distant and unknown localities, an objection which may possibly be complicated with pecuniary considerations. Another obstacle to the proposed plan is the want, in most cases, of a suitable dwelling for the teacher; and a third may be found in the prejudice which will

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