E.—l

papers set by the South Canterbury Inspector, the rest of the inspection being performed by the Secretary. The new Board of the district has not yet appointed an Inspector. The two Inspectors in North Canterbury examined 18,770 children, or 9,385 each. In the other districts the number for each Inspector was as follows: Wellington, 8,235; Otago, 7,208; Nelson (with Marlborough), 6,438; Auckland and Southland, 6,970; Wanganui, 5,634; South Canterbury (with part of Grey), 4,650; Hawke's Bay, 4,401; Taranaki, 2,226; Westland, 1,810. The whole expenditure of the Boards on maintenance (in the strictest sense) was .£310,986 9s. lid.; on official management, ,£10,551 os. 7d. ; and on inspection of schools and examination of pupil-teachers, £10,039 14s. 4d.: a total of £331,577 4s. lOd. (The expenditure on buildings will be treated separately.) The main income required to meet this outlay consists of £306,572 2s. 3d. from the consolidated revenue, supplemented by £29,761 11s. 2d., of which all but a mere fraction must have been supplied from the same source if it had not been received by the School Commissioners as rents of primary education reserves, and paid by them to the Boards. These two sums taken together, and amounting to £336,333 13s. 5d., represent (1) the statutory capitation allowance of £3 15s. according to average attendance; (2) the parliamentary vote of a capitation allowance of ss. for incidental expenses; (3) the vote of a capitation allowance of Is. 6d. (or so much within that limit as is actually expended) for scholarships; ' (4) the vote, £4,000, for subsidy on account of inspection; (5) £7,714 Is. 6d. from the vote for the training of teachers; and (6) £2,263 6s. 4d. from a vote of £2,350 for extinguishing liabilities incurred by the Board of the old Westland District. The income of the Boards included also £1,188 2s. lOd. received from local sources for maintenance (besides £855 14s. 3d. from local sources for building purposes). Money contributed locally to the funds of School Committees, of course, does not appear in the Boards' accounts. The Boards' expenditure on school buildings and sites amounted to £64,821 15s. 4d. The amount received from a Public Works vote of 1884-85 for this purpose was £58,224; to which must be added £484 15s. from a vote for the rebuilding of schools and residences destroyed by fire, and £300 from a vote for the purchase of land for the extension of school sites. As has been already stated, the Boards also received £855 14s. 3d. from local sources for building purposes. In their annual reports several of the Boards complain that the grants made by Parliament for the erection of school buildings are not adequate to the requirements of their districts. The pressure of this want is probably felt most severely in those districts in which many of the schools are held in rented buildings and many others are unprovided with houses for teachers. Table O shows which of the districts are in this condition. Statements of the areas of the school-rooms throughout the colony have been obtained and compared with the attendance returns. It appears that some schools are very much overcrowded, having less than eight square feet of floor-space for each unit of average attendance. There are four such schools in the district of Auckland (liichmond Eoad, Newmarket, Kauaeranga Boys', and Tauranga); two in Wanganui (St. John's and Upper Tutaenui); one in Wellington (Wadestown); four in Hawke's Bay (Ormond, Waerengahika, Te Arai, and Puketapu); two in Marlborough (Blenheim Infants' and Okaramio); one in Nelson (Brooklyn); three in Westland (Woodstock, Okarito, and Gillespie's); one in Grey (Westbrook) ; four in Otago (Oamaru North, Mornington, Caversham, and Otokia); and one in Southland (Gore). There are fifty-four other schools with less than ten square feet for each unit of average attendance, and these include several important town schools in Auckland, Napier, and Dunedin. Particulars of the Boards' income are given in Table No. 3 (Appendix, page 3), and of their expenditure in Tables No. 4, 5, and 9. Table N is an abstract of both, together with a similar abstract for each year from 1877 to 1884.

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