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E.—l2

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE.

Wellington, Friday, 31st Mat, 1912. George Hogben examined on oath. (No. 1.) 1. The Chairman.} What is your official position? —I am Master of Arts, University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of the Geological Society. I am Inspector-General of Schools, and head of the Education Department of New Zealand. I have the order of reference of the Commission, and it seems to me I may spend a good deal of the time of the Commission unnecessarily by going through all these headings. I have looked through them, and in regard to some of them it would perhaps save the time of the Commission if, instead of giving in full any views of my own or even the facts in regard to them, I submitted myself to examination by the Commission. As to the first heading—"The cost of State education in respect to primary, manual, technical, and secondary; and its relation to efficiency." First, as regards cost. This is set out so fully in the tables that are given in E.-l in the hands of every member of the Commission that I shall only indicate briefly where to find them. In E.-l, on page 59 and the succeeding pages, there are certain tables. Three of these tables are given in graphic form. The two summaries to which I should call special attention are in the table called Nl. That gives the expenditure on education in New Zealand for the year 1910-11 —that is, the absolute expenditure on education under public control. It is divided under the heads, " Maintenance " (which includes maintenance of buildings —all maintenance) and " New Buildings and Additions." These give the total cost out of public funds, and the public funds out of which it comes are the Consolidated Fund and the Public Works Fund. Then, out of income from reserves, in the 4th column, the amounts allotted to the several departments of education are shown. The income from reserves includes the school reserves that were under the School Commissioners until April of last year, and are now under the Land Boards. These school reserves are primary and secondary. In the case of primary, they are divided among the several Boards in proportion to the population of each education district— that is, according to the Education Amendment Act, 1910, section 2, subsection (6), paragraph (a). In the case of secondary reserves, they are divided under paragraph (b) of the same section and subsection among the secondary schools in proportion to the number of pupils in average attendance at the several secondary schools. The primary and secondary schools, therefore, are the only schools that get any benefit from these education reserves. 2. Are the receipts from these reserves lumped together?—No, they are separate reserves for each district —that is, practically, each land district. The land districts are, roughly, coterminous with the provincial districts as they were reconstituted. The other reserves are the national endowments, which produce about £46,000 a year. Under the present law the revenue is to be used in reduction of the charges on the consolidated revenue. The only effect, therefore, is to reduce those charges from the point of view of national book-keeping. That is the effect of the primary reserves also, because the revenue from the primary reserves is handed over to the Education Boards, and the same amount is deducted from the statutory grants. There is not the same effect in the case of the secondary reserves, which I will mention presently. The revenue from the national endowments is allotted according to a scheme that has been approved by Cabinet among the several votes taken for education under the consolidated estimates only. Then there are the reserves that have been allocated at various times to secondary schools. They are shown tinder secondary schools in the column headed "Reserves"; the total amount given there is £40,000, which includes an amount out of the national enodwment. If the Commission desires it, I can show how the national endowment is allotted. Besides this, to make up the £40,000 to secondary schools, there is the revenue from the secondary-school reserves, divided in the manner described above, and the income derived by the..«eveval secondary schools from their own special endowments. That applies to all the older secondary schools —to all but one of those established by special Act. Of the secondary schools established by special Act, Marlborough is the only one having no separate endowment. (Some of the others have endowments that are very small indeed.) Marlborough has instead thereof a statutory grant of £400 a year. The new schools established under section 94 of the Education Act, 1908, have no endowment allotted to them, though they are entitled to receive a share of the provincial education reserves revenue allotted to secondary schools. There is a fair number of these now. The last one established is Hamilton; Palmerston North is another; Gore is another; Dannevirke is another. The district high schools do not receive any portion under the Act of the revenue from secondary reserves. In the continuation and technical branches there are one or two small endowments, but they are so small that they may be neglected. £6,000 practically represents their share of the national endowment. As to the University and University Colleges (there are four affiliated Colleges and one affiliated institution), each one of these last five institutions has endowments. The four Colleges, of course, are Auckland University College, Victoria College, Canterbury College, and Otago University; the fifth institution is Lincoln Agricultural College. The endowments for Auckland University College and Victoria College are very small. That of Victoria College is merely nominal. Of the total revenue of £96.000, the sum of £25,000 represents the revenue of Canterbury College, Lincoln Agricultural College, and Otago University. Auckland University College has a revenue of about £900, and

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