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No. 2. The Inspectob of Native Schools to the Inspectob-Genebal of Schools. Sib,— Wellington, 30th May, 1893. In accordance with the terms of your standing instructions, I have the honour to lay before you my report on the general condition of the Native schools of New Zealand, and on the work done in them during the year 1892. Numbek op Schools. At the end of the year 1891 there were seventy-one Native schools in full working order. In the course of the year 1892 three schools were opened, and six were closed. During the year, therefore, or some portion of it, seventy-four schools were in operation; and at the end of the year sixty-eight schools were open—viz., sixty-four village schools (one of these being only subsidised) and four boarding-schools. Changes: New Schools opened, and Schools beopened ob closed. In 1880 the Native school at Waiomio was closed because the attendance was too small and too irregular. Afterwards several applications for reopening were made, and at last it was decided that a small subsidy should be granted. The experimental reopening has proved unsuccessful. The Whakarapa School, in the Hokianga district, and Te Awahou School, on the shores of Lake Eotorua, have been reopened, and were both doing well when last visited. Of the six schools closed during the year, two were handed over to Boards —viz., those at Onuku, Banks Peninsula, and Beoinoana or Port Molyneux, near the mouth of the Clutha ; in both cases the attendance had become almost entirely European. Two schools —viz., those at Te Kao, Parengarenga Harbour, and Mangamuka, in the Hokianga district—were closed on account of the falling-off in the attendance, caused in the main by the high price of kauri-gum and the consequent withdrawal of the children from school to dig for it. As there is a considerable Maori population in the neighbourhood of these schools, it is quite probable that they may have to be reopened when the demand for gum becomes somewhat less urgent. It may happen in both these cases that the buildings will have to be removed to positions more central than those now occupied by them. It is hoped that the school-buildings at Taita, north of Dargaville, and at Te Akau, on Lake Eotoiti, will also be utilised at places a few miles distant from their present locations. Operations had to be discontinued at these two schools through the falling-off of the attendance —at Taita because the Natives no longer found it convenient to send their children there, and at Te Akau because a long struggle on the part of the Natives to maintain an attendance ended in a breakdown, closely following the virtual desertion of the large settlement at Taheke, which had been the mainstay of the school. New Schools and New Buildings asked fob ob in Peogress, and Pkoposals foe eeopening Schools that have been closed. It will be convenient to give available information under this head in the form of a list, making brief mention of all the applications that have been recently dealt with, or are now receiving attention: — Te Pupuke, Whangaroa Harbour. —This is apparently a very good opening. The site has been surveyed ; as soon as the title is obtained buildings will probably be erected. Opanaki, Kaihu Valley, Wairoa North. —An experimental school is to be begun here very shortly in Native buildings. Eventually the Taita buildings are to be removed to Opanaki. Otamauru, near Whakatane, Bay of Plenty. —Circumstances are similar to those at Opanaki. Parapara, Mangonui. —A small building will be erected when a title is secured. Utakura, Okaihau, Bay of Islands. —Board school established in the neighbourhood; Native school not needed. Aroivhenua, Temuka, South Canterbury. —lt is hoped that a school will be started soon. Whareponga, East Coast. —No progress has been made. Banana, Te Ngae, Lake Botorua. —Eotoiti buildings are to be removed to this place when a title to the site has been secured. Whakarewareiua, Botorua. —School greatly needed apparently, but nothing has yet been done. Hiniharama, East Coast. —As at Whakarewarewa. Whalatutu, near Poverty Bay. —Negotiations incomplete. Buatoki, near Whakatane. —Negotiations have fallen through for the present. Horoera, near East Cape. —-This would be a promising case if one of our best schools were not within five or six miles of the proposed site. Moawhango, Patea. —There is a very good opening here, and the Natives have recently renewed indirectly their application for a school. Te Houlvi, near Fort Galatea. —To be visited again shortly. Two applications have been received recently for schools on the West Coast—one from Waihi, near Waitara, another from the neighbourhood of Hawera; in neither case has the business gone beyond the merest preliminaries. Schools in Full Wobk, 1892-93. The basis on which the schools are grouped is supplied by their geographical position. Much information with regard to the work done by individual schools, and their efficiency as educational institutions, has been tabulated and printed in the Appendix. Table No. 6 gives the results obtained by examination. In Table No. 7 these are combined with the results of an evaluation based on inspection. Additional information relating to the character and circumstances of particular schools will be found iv the following paragraphs :—