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surprise and gratification from those who visit the institution. The following is an abstract of the expenditure on the institution for the financial year 1883-84. £ s. a. Salaries —Director and two assistants 845 0 1 Eents and repairs . 315 16 10 Travelling expenses, medical attendance, furniture, and schoolroom requisites, &c. . 212 4 8 Maintenance of pupils 1,197 3 8 2,570 5 2 Less payments by parents 457 3 4 Total , .. £2,113 I_lo The charge made by the Grovernment for the board and education of each child is £40 a year, but in many instances pupils are admitted free, or at reduced rates, so that no child in the colony capable of receiving benefit from the course of instruction may be excluded.

2. Dibectob's Repobt. Sic, — Sumner, 31st May, 1884. In introducing to your notice this year's report, I have the honour to state that the past year has been one of complete freedom from sickness in the institution, and that the general progress of most of the pupils is of a satisfactory nature. Of the total of thirty-two pupils now attending, eleven have their homes in Otago, ten in Canterbury, seven in Auckland, and one in each of the Provincial Districts of Wellington, Hawke's Bay, and Taranaki. There is also one pupil from Adelaide. The boys' home and other school buildings are still suitable for present requirements, but as all the inmates have grown considerably, and as five new pupils took the place of three who left, there is now no further spare room for future applicants. Of still greater importance to the institution than the question of space are—(l) The consideration of whether trades and other occupations should be taught to the pupils of the advanced classes , and (2) the supply of teachers. Teades, etc. —To the utility of farming and gardening for deaf boys in the colony I have already drawn the department's attention in my former recommendation to have certain blocks of land set apart for the ultimate use and instruction of such children. That other branches of industry are suited to their peculiar condition, a reference to what is being done in older institutions may serve as a guide. In the tabular statement of the American institutions, mention is made of carpentry, cabinetmaking, baking, dressmaking, gardening, painting, printing, shoemaking, and tailoring, in connection with the institution at New York, of broommaking, cabinetmaking, farming, printing, and shoemaking at lowa, and of two or three of these same occupations in nearly all the other American institutions. At the Rotterdam Institution the boys have an opportunity of attending workshops in the town, and are brought up to either shoemaking, cabinetmaking, tailoring, bookbinding, lithography, or basketmaking. Several I remember have turned out good fanners. And, for the girls, three ladies are specially engaged to teach them plain sewing, knitting, measuring, the cutting-out and fitting of dresses, &c. I may here remark that in our own institution five boys will before long be sufficiently advanced in age as well as in education to pass part of the day on a farm, or to be sent to a workshop. Several of the girls have come to us at a late age—fourteen and sixteen. Their proficiency in speech and progress in general knowledge must naturally remain defective , but have they not, for this very reason, all the greater claim on us to receive such instruction as will fit them for some industrial occupation. The Teaching Staff. — Our institution is only in its infancy, yet unavoidable changes of teachers have, already taken place, and are shortly to take place again. While a school is small this may not seriously interfere with its effectual working, but with our increased number and strict classification —strict, because of the great difference in the age of the pupils who enter —permanent success is impossible unless teachers are trained to the work young, and are induced to take it up, not for convenience' sake, but as a special profession. At the Eoyal Deaf-and-dumb Institution, Berlin, there were in 1882 eighty-four pupils. These were instructed by a staff of nine experienced teachers and eight candidates or student-teachers undergoing a course of five years training. In Rotterdam, during the same year, 162 pupils were being taught by fifteen masters (most of these have been engaged in the work of deaf-mute education for upwards of twenty years, and of their zeal and ability I can speak from personal knowledge) , three ladies for needlework; three teachers for religious instruction, and one for drawing. In citing these particulars for comparison it is my aim to supply the Government with reliable data, in order that the first institution in New Zealand for the amelioration of the pitiable condition of the deaf-and-dumb may be established on a sound basis, and that such an institution may be governed and directed according to the requirements, the experience, and the most enlightened views of the age. In view of a possible change from our temporary settlement, I may observe that, having regard to the requirements of boys who show an aptitude for learning a trade, the neighbourhood of an industrial centre (or railway-station to reach the same) would be the most suitable for a permanent establishment. For boys with a taste for farming, and for others of too small a capacity to become artisans, a good-sized farm of two or three hundred acres of good arable land is the desideratum,