"E.—3

14

supervision the number of such cases will soon become greater. Before boarding out children for money-payments in the ordinary way, managers are enjoined to make every possible inquiry as to whether there are any relatives or friends—whether legally liable or not for maintenance-money— who might be willing to receive one or more of the children without payment or at a reduced rate. The printed memorandum for officers of police herewith enclosed will greatly facilitate the manager's inquiries on this point. In connection with this matter attention is directed to paragraph 2 of Mr. Guillaume's letter on the "Working of the Industrial Schools Acts in Victoria," reprinted among the papers on Industrial Schools and Orphanages (E.-3, 1884) recently presented to the General Assembly, a copy of which has been forwarded to you. 8. Care must be taken not to place too many foster-children in one family, nor to encourage the coming into operation of anything like a system of "child-farming." In no case should more than four of our children be placed in charge of the same foster-parent, and not even so many as four when there is also in the household a large number of other young children. Children of the same family should be placed together whenever practicable. 9. As a rule the children should be boarded with respectable families, who are not wholly or very largely dependent for a livelihood upon the payments received by them from Government for the children's maintenance. In connection with this subject Miss Florence Hill writes as follows: "I have been much impressed in England with the affection which grows up between these foster-parents and the children. Their care of them has been quite touching, and in serious illness instances are not rare when they will not part with them even when payment stops. We prefer placing them with married couples, rather than with widows or unmarried women (though with these they often do well), because the influence of a father is very desirable, and the affection that springs up between the foster-father and the child, especially if a little girl, is very strong. It is not uncommon for these children to be taken by people who have lost their own, or who wish for a companion for an only child, sometimes by those who have never had children, or whose children have grown up and gone into the world, and who find life dull without little people about them." 10. As a rule the children should be placed with residents in country localities or open healthy suburban districts ; as seldom as possible in very large towns, and never with those who occupy dwellings in the low and crowded portions of cities. In all cases the children should reside within a fair distance of a day-school. 11. The question is under consideration by the department whether some steps might not be taken to make the policy of the Government with regard to the boarding-out of industrial school children more widely known throughout the colony, so that proposals to take the children may come in more freely from suitable parties. You will be good enough to forward any recommendation you may be prepared to make as to how this could best be done. 12. In the boarding-out of any child the order of the committing Magistrate as to the religious denomination should be respected as far as practicable. In no case should a Eoman Catholic child be placed with a Protestant foster-parent, or vice versa. 13. The committal-sheets forwarded to this office along with the manager's monthly returns not unfrequently show that cases of more or less doubtful expediency have been taken before the Resident Magistrate. You are already aware of the nature of some of such cases from the correspondence that has taken place. Managers are requested to peruse the committal-sheets as soon as possible after the admission of the children, and to forward the sheets to this office at once in any cases where it appears to them that the causes assigned for the committal may be open to question. It may often happen that a manager may be able, from his own knowledge, or from inquiries made by him on the spot, to furnish the department with serviceable information concerning cases that may be submitted by him for consideration. John llislop. Education Department, Wellington, 24th September, 1884.

Memoeandum for Managees of Industeial Schools. (No. 5-84.) (Guardianship and Discharge of Committed Children.) 1. I am directed by the Minister of Education to bring specially under your notice the provisions of " The Industrial Schools Act, 1882," which relate to the discharge and to the guardianship of committed children. 2. The requirement in sections 18 and 19 of the Act, that the child shall be detained in an industrial school until he shall have attained the age of fifteen years, has reference only to the term during which he may be kept actually within the precincts of the school. The child may not be detained in the school after he reaches fifteen years; the Minister, however, may at any time after the commitment issue a license for him to reside out of the school, or the Governor may order his transference from one school to another or grant an absolute discharge. (See sections 28, 29, 30, and 55.) 3. "When a child is committed to an industrial school the parent ceases to have any legal control or guardianship over him; the guardianship becomes vested in the manager of the school, and it lasts until the child reaches the age of twenty-one years, subject to the power given to the Governor to discharge him absolutely at any time, or to transfer the guardianship to some other person. The powers of the guardian are the same as those " which a guardian of the person of an infant appointed by the Supreme Court would have." (See sections 26 to 30 inclusive.) 4. The Government will be prepared to consider proposals for the discharge of a child when it can be shown that the circumstances which led to the commitment have materially changed for the better, and that such discharge is likely to prove advantageous to the child. The discharge of a child by the Governor cancels absolutely his connection with the Government and the school, and all the rights of his parents, if he has any, revert to them.