8.—4

■ 1901. NEW ZEALAND.

EDUCATION: SCHOOL FOR DEAF-MUTES. [In continuation of E.-4, 1900.]

Presented to both Houses of the General Assembly by Command of His Excellency.

No. 1. Extract peom the Twenty-eoubth Annual Report op the Ministee of Education. This school has continued its valuable work in the education of deaf-mute children on the same lines as heretofore, instruction being given in the pure oral method, by which the deaf are taught to understand ordinary speech and to speak themselves so as to be readily understood by others. The power of language thus acquired is made the means of mental development to an extent which does not appear possible under any system of signs, manual or otherwise. It would be thought that the advantages to be gained by placing those thus afflicted more or less on an equality with their hearing fellow-creatures would be sufficiently obvious to make all parents of such children willing to send them to an institution where they are carefully looked after and educated. Such, however, is not the case; for although the roll of the school includes, with one or two exceptions, all the deaf-mutes of school age and of sound intellect in the colony that have been brought under the notice of the Education Department, yet there are the exceptions already referred to, and many instances are met with from time to time of deaf but naturally intelligent young men or women who have escaped the notice of the Department and have been allowed to grow up without education. If the fact were not so clear it would be difficult to imagine that there should be parents so shortsighted or so selfish as to stand in the way of their children's best interests. Nothing short of compulsion will move these people to send their deaf-mute children to Sumner, and it would probably be to the interest of the State to see that the necessary compulsion was used. The law in England in regard to the compulsory education of blind and deaf children is worthy of note : — "It is the duty of every school authority to enforce the law of compulsory attendance in the case of blind children between the ages of five and sixteen, and of deaf children between seven and sixteen (56 and 57 Yict., c. 42, sec. 11). The fact that children may be blind or deaf is not an excuse for parents not providing education for them, and the fact that there may be no suitable public elementary school within a certain distance is not a reasonable excuse for not causing a blind or deaf child to attend school (ibid., sec. 1). School authorities are responsible for the provision of suitable education-for such children, but it is not intended that the whole expense shall be borne by the