E.—4

1907. NEW ZEALAND.

EDUCATION: SCHOOL FOR DEAF-MUTES. [In continuation of E.-4, 1906.]

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

No. 1. Extract from the Thirtieth Annual Report of the Minister of Education. It cannot be too often repeated that in this institution the deaf, who would otherwise be speechless, are taught both to speak and to understand (from the motion of the lips) the speech of others, and that they are thereby admitted not only to the benefits of communication with their fellow-men, but even very largely to the conceptions involved in human intercourse. These facts are not always understood or "appreciated. Every year deaf children are found who, to a greater or less extent, have passed the age at which their special instruction should have begun, and who consequently fail to attain expertness in oral communication, or more than partial mental development. Through want of knowledge of the institution, through mistaken advice, through misguided affection, or through fear of expense, the parents of these children are responsible for a loss of time that can never be made good. The following classes of deaf children are admitted to the institution, mental soundness being in all cases a necessity :— 1. Children born deaf, or who have lost their hearing before learning to speak. 2. Children who can hear a little, but are too deaf to be taught in an ordinary school. 3. Children who have lost their hearing after having learned to speak. The number of pupils in the institution is steadily increasing. At the reopening of the school at the beginning of the year there were 57 pupils—29 boys and 28 girls ; 9 boys and 6 girls were admitted during the year, and 1 boy and 1 girl left the school. At the end of the year there were 70 p U pil s _37 boys and 33 girls. It will soon become necessary to provide more residential accommodation, either by extending the buildings at Sumner or by establishing a branch of the institution in another part of the country. The ordinary expenditure on the institution for the year 1906 was : Salaries of Director and teachers, £1,593 Is. Id. ; steward, matron, and servants, £726 3s. 3d. ; rent, £11 13s. 4d. ; housekeeping,'£B27 17s. 9d. ; travelling-expenses (including transit of pupils), £182 4s. Id. ; school material and material for technical instruction, £8 ss. Bd. ; general maintenance of buildings and furniture, £207 4s • clothing, £20 14s. 10d. ; medical attendance and medicine, £74 4s. Id. ; water-supply, £51 7s. 6d. ; boarding-out of pupils, £164 6s. 4d. ; sundries, £141 12s. 4d. : total expenditure, £4,008 14s 3d. Deducting parents' contributions, £415 2s. 5d., the net expenditure was £3,593 11s. 10d. The amount expended in 1904 was £4,176 Is. 4d. The sum expended during the year upon the new building was £1,976 Bs. lid. In 1905 the amount was £1,325 16s. 3d.

No. 2. Report of the Director. g IR . School for Deaf-mutes, Sumner, 13th April, 1907. I have the honour to lay before you my report for the year 1906. After the summer holidays fifty-eight of the preceding year's pupils, of whom thirty were boys and twenty-eight were girls, returned to the school, and eight new pupils (four of each sex) were admitted, making a total of sixty-six at the commencement of the year. In April two boys and one girl,