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has it yet been found possible to secure a site at Tangitiroria, a settlement far up the Northern Wairoa, and once noted for its mission-stations, Catholic and Wesleyan. A school is much needed and would be successful at each of these two places. The Poroti School was reopened as an experiment but the Natives of the district appear not to have been sufficiently intelligent to value the opportunity a second time afforded them of getting their children educated, and the school had to be closed again very shortly after the reopening. The school at Omaramutu, eight miles from Opotiki, had been closed for several years because the Natives had nearly all removed to Opotiki. Last year they returned to their old settlement, which has now a large Native population. Under the circumstances the request of the Natives that the school should be reopened has been complied with. If the people have not been too much demoralized by their long residence in town, they will undoubtedly be able to maintain a very good school at Omararnutu. Te Ngaere had to be closed, the Natives there were altogether too apathetic to make it worth while to keep the school going. This is to be regretted, seeing that there is a very large Native population in the district, and that the children will now have to grow up illiterate. The last master would, I think, have made the school successful if it had been possible. The Natives living near Waiotahi all removed to another district this of course proved fatal to the subsidized school there. Tokomaru affords another instance of apathy on the part of some of the Natives with regard to their children's future. Extensive repairs and alterations were urgently required here, and the Government, in accordance with a salutary rule now always' acted upon, refused to incur the needful expenditure unless the Natives would give a perfect title to the site on which the improved buildings were to stand. This they would not do. As the school was unsatisfactory in other respects, it was decided to close it. It is to be hoped that wiser counsels will prevail here eventually, and that the Natives will make up their minds to give the required title—a very small matter- to them. This is one of the districts where there should be a very strong school, and no doubt there will be one by-and-by, when the Natives have learned by experience that through the want of one they are being quite left behind by their more enlightened' brethren in other parts of New Zealand. The experiments made at Tolago Bay did not succeed. A petition, signed by nearly every one in the district, Maori or European, had been sent to the Government, asking that a young half-caste who had been educated at Napier should be appointed mistress of the school. It was thought that, though a regular village school could not be maintained at Tolago, a subsidized school might answer the purpose. A trial was made accordingly but the thing broke down. The school work was done satisfactorily enough, but difficulties arose that rendered advisable the closing of the school. New Schools and New Buildings required. The people of IJmuhika, a permanent Maori village some seven miles from Matata and eight from Te Teko, ask for a school. They offer a suitable site, and it seems likely that if a -small school were established there a very fair attendance could be secured. Petitions from schools had been sent in from Kenana, Takahue, Parapara, and Kaikinikini, all in the Mangonui District: it was not considered advisable to grant a school in any one of these cases, but Takahue is to be provided for ,by the removal of the Kaitaia School to a position further up the valley. The Natives of Tikitiki, a settlement on the left bank of the Waiapu, near the East Cape, have asked for a school. There is a very good one about three miles away but, seeing that there is a broad and dangerous river between, it and Tikitiki, I think that it would be well to accept the offered site and to build, as the population of the district is quite large enough to keep two very good schools going. The negotiations with regard to school sites at Te Oreore and Papawai, in the Wairarapa District, have 'not yet come to' an end. Persons that have never had anything 4d do with acquiring land from Native joint-owners can have little idea of the troubles and difficulties that have to "be-surmounted before such a presumably simple matter as the acquisition of a title to a school site of two or three acres can be accomplished, unless indeed the land is held entirely by the old Native tenure — then the thing is simple enough. Difficulties of this kind are now preventing the establishment of a school at Te Waotu. Arekatera, a leading chief of the district, is very anxious to give a site, and the Government would gladly found a school on it, but Arekatera is joint owner with his children, and it is hard to see how the thing is to be managed. The difficulty here is very similar to that which has hitherto prevented the establishment of a school at Waimamaku, in the Hokianga District, referred to in previous reports, A petition has been sent in for a school at Te Ahuahu, near Waimate, Bay of Islands. It seems probable that a fairly good school could bo maintained there. The Natives of Tuparoa, on the East Coast, are very anxious to have a school in their district there is certainly sufficient population at Tuparoa, Eeporua, Earnoto, and Taumata-o-mihi to furnish a good attendance at one of these places. Perhaps Tuparoa is as good a position for a school for the. district as any of the other places named , at all events a school is to he erected there as soon as a site can be secured. It may be advantageous to state here the principles that regulate the choice of a school site in a district that is considered suitable for the establishment of a Native school: — (a.) The site must be near (say within half a mile of) some large Native settlement, the children of which would be expected to form the bach-bone, of the school, and supply attendants in bad weather, &c. (b.) It is desirable, but not indispensable, that t ore should be wood and water on the site. (c.) The soil must be of good, or, at the worst, of fair, quality, and one-fourth of it at least must be suitable for a garden. the site should have a northern aspect. (d.) The site must not include, or be very near, a wahi, tapu. : (c.) It must be accessible in all weathers,' and safe from floods. (/.) A part of the site should be sufficiently level for a playground, suitable for cricket, &c.

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