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men of eminence in their several departments in the universities of the United Kingdom. The delay irfvolved in sending the candidates' papers Home for examination is held to be amply compensated for by the prestige which attaches to degrees that are conferred not according to the judgment of local teachers, but upon the impartial decision of distant and eminent examiners. The University receives from the colonial Treasury an annual subsidy of £3,000, one-half of which sum it devotes to scholarships. Besides this statutory grant of £3,000, the University received during the year 1896 £2,191 from fees for examinations, £414 from fees for degrees and certificates, and £919 from interest, making a total of £6,524. The expenditure on scholarships and prizes was £2,041; the expenses of examinations amounted to £2,916, and the general expenses to £1,026 : making a total of £5,983. The three local teaching institutions are endowed—the University of Otago and Canterbury College very handsomely. The University of Otago maintains a staff of twenty-four academical professors and lecturers, Canterbury College eleven, and Auckland University College seven. The matriculated students attending lectures at these affiliated colleges in 1896 numbered 419, and the unmatriculated students 323. The returns for 1897 have not yet been received. There is no provision of free meals for needy scholars attending the public schools. It is believed that the children are all well fed, and that if ever one of them is observed to be indifferently clad its wardrobe is soon supplemented by private benevolence. Destitute and neglected children are dealt with under the Industrial Schools Act, and so come under the guardianship of the State, which takes care that they shall be properly housed, clothed, and fed, and strictly enforces their attendance at school. There are three Government industrial schools for the maintenance and education of destitute, neglected, and criminal children, and also three similar schools connected with the Roman Catholic Church, but subject to Government inspection and control. A child admitted to any of these institutions remains under the legal guardianship of the manager of the institution until he reaches the age of twenty-one years, or is discharged. In the meantime he either resides in the institution or is boarded out with foster-parents, or, if of an age to be earning wages, is put out to service, and lives in the house of his licensed employer. Prom the Government schools all children of suitable age and character are boarded out —many of the " inmates " never set foot inside the walls of the school from the time of their admission to the time of their discharge. Every house in which any inmate of an industrial school is boarded out is subject to inspection by a lady visitor, and by an officer of the Education Department. The lady visitor reports monthly to the manager of the school. The number of children on the books of the industrial schools at December, 1897, was 1,588, of whom only 581 were resident in the institutions while 396 were boarded out, 427 were at service, and 119 were living with their friends on probation awaiting discharge. Of the remaining sixtyfive, thirty-six were in homes and refuges, seven in hospitals and asylums, two in gaol, and twenty absent without leave. Only 199 were resident in the Government schools, while 385 from the same schools were boarded out. There are no reformatories other than the industrial schools. The name " industrial " as applied to these schools is a survival, and represents an almost obsolete idea. The inmates are not fully prepared for trades or industries while at school, but are sent to service at the age of fourteen, to acquire a knowledge of practical work, as other young people do. There is a school for deaf-mutes under Government control, conducted on the pure oral system, in which there were forty-seven pupils, being twenty-seven boys and twenty girls, at the end of 1897. The total cost of the school during 1897 was £3,308, including £186 contributed by parents. There is an institution for blind people, managed by trustees, at which nineteen pupils were maintained by the Government during 1897, at a total expenditure of £492, of which £40 was contributed by parents. Appendix. 1. Accompanying this report are the following pamphlets : — (a.) " Education Act, 1877," and related Acts, together with Regulations made under them. Six copies. (b.) Inspection of Schools and Standards of Examination. (A reprint of pages 64 to 83 of pamphlet (a). Six copies. (c.) Teachers' Certificates. (A reprint of pages 84 to 90 of pamphlet (a). Six copies. (d.) Native Schools Code. Six copies. (c.) Report of the Minister of Education for 1896 (the last published). Three copies. 2. The building and equipment of schools is not regulated by law, but is left to the discretion of the several Education Boards.

No. 6. (No. 34.) Sic, — Government House, Wellington, 23rd June, 1898. I have the honour to inform you that on the 20th instant I called to the Council the two gentlemen whose names are marginally stated.* The two members of the Native race have not yet been finally selected. I have, &c, The Right Hon. J. Chamberlain, RANFURLY. Secretary of State for the Colonies.

* Mr. A. Lee Smith, and Mr. J. M. Twomey.