3

E.—2.

that will enable them to perform willingly and intelligently the work that has to be done in connection with their homes. There are very few Maori boys, and, up to the present, no Maori girls, who have become students at the University Colleges, and it seems accordingly a waste of effort to teach Latin and other purely academic subjects to those who should be taught in a practical way the principles that underlie agriculture, domestic work, and the other occupations of their future lives. The few who show sufficient ability to warrant their being taken for a considerable time away from their own people could, at a far less total expense, receive at the ordinary secondary schools the training necessary to prepare them for a university career. Quite recently a way has been opened up for giving a trial, so far as one locality is concerned, to a scheme proposed some three or four years ago for enabling Maoris, after finishing their school education, to find a field of action in which what they have acquired at school may be applied to the purposes of ordinary life; in which they may, in fact, find the uses of the training they have received by practising in a Maori settlement conducted on European lines the art of living in European fashion. The Native school at Pamoana, on the Wanganui River, has afforded the kind of opportunity necessary for trying the experiment. A large number of young people are on the ground, and already fairly well educated; the Maoris have given the necessary land, and very soon everything will be ready for making a beginning. It would be futile to attempt at the present stage to describe accurately the steps to be taken, but the information here given will probably suffice to show the general lines on which the little colony is to be founded. It may be added, however, that it is intended to make the settlement industrial, and, as soon as possible, self-supporting. The usual account of the schools and their progress will be found in the Inspector's report, and also paragraphs on subjects connected with Maori life in general, in so far as this is influenced by or influences education.

No. 2. The Inspector of Maori Schools to the Inspector-General of Schools. Sir,— Wellington, 31st March, 1902. In accordance with the terms of my appointment, as set forth in letter of 20th November, 1879, I have the honour to lay before you a report on the general conditions of the Native Schools of New Zealand, and on the work done by them during the year 1901. At the end of the year 1900 there were eighty-nine schools in full working order ; at the end of 1899 the number was eighty-eight. In the course of 1901 four new village schools were opened, and one school was re-opened; also an aided school was begun at Turanganui, otherwise called Ranana te Tuarua (London the Second). During the year, or some portion of it, ninety-five schools were in operation, of these being village schools and four boarding-schools. At the end of the year, as no schools had been closed, the number was still ninety-five. If to these were added the denominational schools which the Department lias been asked to inspect and examine— viz., those at Matata Convent, Putiki, Otaki, and Waerenga-a-Hika—the total number of Native schools would be ninety-nine. Changes : New Schools Opened, etc. Te Haroto School, some forty-three miles from Napier and on the Taupo Road, was opened in the March quarter, 1901. The region has a rather inhospitable climate, but it seems likely that the Haroto Maoris will make their school very successful; at all events both Inspectors have visited the district and have formed a high estimate of the school and of the people who are supporting it. Oromahoe School, opened in the June quarter, is in the Bay of Islands district; it, too, has made an excellent beginning, and the indications are that it will have to be considered one of the really good Maori schools ; there seem 3to be no reason to fear a repetition of the breakdown of twenty-one years ago. Ruapuke Island : This also is a district in which a new attempt has been made after a very long period of quiescence. A prudent and industrious teacher should be able to make the school on this interesting island very fairly successful, although some of the difficulties connected with it are rather formidable. The school was opened in the September quarter. Whareponga began work in the December quarter. It is in a district containing many good schools, and there is no reason to fear that it will lower the general tone. Pariroa is close to the railway line, and a short distance from Patea. It, too, was opened in the December quarter. The Maoris have taken long to consider the advisability of adopting European ways in the matter of schools, but there is now good reason for hoping that they will give enthusiastic support to the school. The