E.—l

XII

The expenditure for 1891 was ,£15,251 Is. lid., towards which amount a contribution of £91 Is. 6d. was received from the income of Native reserves. The amount absorbed in the salaries of village-school teachers, and in allowances to them for removals and other purposes, was .£11,024 13s. 6d., and the other items are —School requisites, .£3BO 6s 6d., prizes, £296 17s. 5d., repairs and small works, £268 ss. Id , inspection, including travelling, £652 Is. 9d., grants to boarding-schools and travelling expenses of scholars, £1,631 75., buildings, fencing, and furniture, £980 7s 6d., sundries, £17 3s. 2d. Mr Bishop, Mr Booth, Mr Bush, and Mr Wilkinson continue to render most valuable service to the Department as District Superintendents of Native Schools. Mr Pope's annual report on the inspection of all the schools is printed as a separate paper (E.-2) In the latter part of the year the Minister of Education visited twenty-one schools, accompanied during the greater part of the journey by the Assistant Inspector, and surprise visits, in addition to such as were made by the Inspector, were paid to twelve other schools by the Chief Clerk of the Department. The following memorandum and circular were afterwards sent to all the teachers. The memorandum relates to the manner in which the registers are kept: — Memoeandum for Teachebs of Native Schools. Teachers of Native schools are aware that a part of their salary depends on the average attendance of pupils. It is well that they should know that it is often said by adverse critics of the Native-school system that the rolls are kept in such a manner as to invalidate all returns based upon them. The eighth paragraph of the " Instructions " printed on the back of the daily register contains a plain and peremptory rule for marking the register in such a way as to render it possible for an official visitor entering the school during the last half of the morning or afternoon to see for himself whether, on that occasion, the entries in the register are truly made. The rule is too plain to be misunderstood , the reason of it is evident, and nearly all the teachers have had their attention called to it, in many cases because of their neglect of it. It is a rule not made for the special case of the Maori schools, but applicable to all the public schools—for which, indeed, it was first framed. There is no excuse whatever for disregarding it, and teachers ought to see that when they disregard it they expose themselves to the suspicion of being willing to keep open an opportunity of falsifying their records. A series of official visits to some of the schools has been lately made out of the usual course, and in a considerable proportion of the schools visited it was found that the rule for the marking of the register was not duly observed. The entries were made in pencil instead of ink, or the attendances were marked, but the total was not entered at the foot of the column , or the entries had not been made for a day or two or the marking was put off to a later hour than that which is specified in the " Instructions." No evidence of fraudulent design was brought to light, but it is evident that teachers are not sufficiently impressed with the importance of observing a rule that was intended to establish a practice strict enough to disarm suspicion. In future any teacher found guilty of negligence in this respect will forfeit all right to the increment that depends directly on average attendance, and will be deprived of any status already acquired with respect to seniority The deprivation of status will be absolute, and the offender will have to begin again as probationer, but that part of the penalty which consists in the withholding of the attendance increment may cease at any time if the Minister, to mark the restoration of confidence, shall so order Education Department, Wellington, Ist November, 1891. Wμ. Jas. Habens. The circular was designed to stimulate and guide the teachers to improvements in the teaching of English : — Education Department, Wellington, 17th February, 1892. The Teacher, Native School, . I am directed to inform you that the Minister of Education, in the course of his recent visits to Native schools, was much impressed by the difference between the most efficient schools and those that are less efficient with respect to the attainments made by the pupils in the study, of English. The Minister is of opinion that the general standard of proficiency in the comprehension and in the use of our language ought to be very considerably raised, and that this might easily be done if all the teachers had an adequate conception of the difficulties to be overcome, and would maintain an unflagging determination to surmount them. The first thing is to recognise the contrasts between Maori and English, as the main source of difficulty The Maori alphabet contains comparatively few consonants. Among lip-sounds it has no b (though its p sometimes inclines to b) no/ and no v consequently it is necessary to take great pains to secure the right pronunciation of the initial letters of such words as bane, fane, pane, vane, wane. Among throat-sounds Maori has no g therefore, the teacher must strongly insist on the distinction between guard and card, gale and kale. In tooth-sounds Maori has no d, and no th (though the Maori t inclines sometimes to d, and sometimes to an aspirated t not identical with either of the sounds represented in English by th), and though the Maori r sometimes inclines to I