10

E.—2

cient, and the lesson may be read by the ordinary " Look, and say" method, with which all our teachers are familiar The success at first will, of course, be small, but progress will soon be rapid and if the " preparations " are well selected and honestly worked out day by day for, say, a month, it will be found that the back of the difficulty has been broken, and that the children have such a command of letter-sounds and simple syllables as will enable them to make thenceforth pleasant and rapid progress. The names of the letters may now be learnt, spelling lessons, dealing with slightly irregular words, may be gradually introduced and dealt with by the phonic method , and reading lessons, becoming more difficult progressively, may be used. A teacher that gives this method a fair trial, as the writer has done, will be surprised at the rapidity with which children taught by it emerge from the rank of mere beginners. Conclusion The work shown at the examinations held in 1893 has been decidedly better than that of previous years. A glance at the figures at the foot of Table 6 will show that, except in Standard IV passes were much more numerous than they were in 1892. It may be added that they were very much stronger Besides this, there has been a great revival of the interest of the Natives in the success of their schools, and more earnest efforts have been made by them to secure it. Thus, on the whole, the retrospect is much more gratifying than it has been for several years past. I have, &c, The Inspector-General of Schools. James H. Pope.