E.—No. 9a,

If the Report of Mr. Taylor is intended as an aggression, I must confess that it is a very imprudent and unjust one, as it would attack men of conscience and teaching capacity; men friends of the Government, men of obedience to law and authority, and most devoted to the salvation and civilisation of the native people, as well as to the welfare of the colony; men having deeply at heart their pupils' flocks interests which they procure with the rules and spirit of Christian abnegation, knowing well beforehand their difficult task to educate with deficiency of means, and sacrifice of co-operation, a people that is more to be tamed than to be ruled at once with a severe regularity, and that may be easily ill-judged by inexperienced and unbenevolent persons, who, not knowing the pastoral rules of good teachers, they, instead of causing " the life" of" education to youth and "increasing it more and more abundantly " in them, silence the good qualities of the pupils and of their training, and generalising what may be defective or incompletely good in them. During a short time of visit and inspection they may accumulate a great amount of evil upon some defects more or less apparent or even more or less real. With such severe measures no encouragement for men, and weak pupils, no encouragement also for their patient teachers, no true justice made to the institution, which is like a tree not to be broken, but to be cultivated and fecundified, and even cured if necessary ; but not to be amputated, or cut down and destroyed, as it has been proposed to be done by the Inspector, Mr. Taylor, page 8, line 20, 21 and 22 ; and page 13 from line 6 to line 13. "What is alleged in page 10th, where the Eeporter says, " I found it almost impossible to conduct the examination of this school," &c, belongs more or less to severity and inexperience of the Maori people and Maori pupils, who being not well at home with an examiner, who does not know either Maori language or Maori people, become embarrassed, puzzled, and unable to undergo well an examination, without still being to be classified with pupils of colleges considered by the Eeporter as contemptible according to his ill-placed expressions, page 10th, line 12. It is true that two pupils (page 12 lines 14, 15, 16) died in the college stone building from a kind of typhus fever, a disease which afflicted a great many tribes in New Zealand at that time, but although the deaths of those two pupils only, and the late disturbances of war in this country have caused the emigration of the pupils partly to your College of Freeman's Bay, near your Lordships residence, and partly to their tribes abroad, still I thank God for your experience and prudence with the Native people, because we owe to your pastoral ministry and direction the safe keeping at Freeman's Bay, of very interesting scholars, about 15 in number, who continue under your own eyes, the work of instruction and Christian education. Now I don't mind much what Mr. Taylor states about the glebe of the College at North Shore. Page 10, paragraph 2nd, there are about 400 acres, &c, &c. I can say only that the farming labours have been made for the best, according to the means of the local administration, and to the circumstances of the season, which has not been favourable for the farmers in general of this country. As for the reflections of the Reporter at the 11th, 12th, and 13th pages of his report they don't agree with the real state of the College as described in the pages 2 and 3 of my present letter. Still, notwithstanding all the contradictions which I have been obliged to give to the Report of Mr. Taylor, I hope that your Lordship, as well as the civil superiors in the Colonial Government, will acknowledge my readiness of obedience for their direction about things to be amended or to be improved. I am of opinion that if the disturbed state of the country by war would be soon followed by peace this College of St. Mary at North Shore, could become a flourishing one for the instruction, Christian education, salvation, and civilisation of great many pupils, natives, half-castes, and poor destitute children. In these feelings and hopes, I have the honor to be, Ac, William Coveney, Teacher. To the Right Rev. Dr. Pompallier, Bishop of Auckland.

No. 4. THE RIGHT REVEREND DR. POMPALLIER TO TnE HONORABLE THE MINISTER FOR NATIVE AFFAIRS. Auckland, 17th Sept., 1863. Sir, — After all the information communicated to you by my letter of the 12th instant, with its enclosures, I think it proper to give to you the following other ones in order to make more complete the description of the circumstances of my Native Colleges at Auckland. For the present St. Mary's College, at North Shore is interrupted, not for a long time at all, the pupils of the stone buildings having come near my residence at Freeman's Bay, and the pupils of the College land having returned to their tribes abroad, to be quiet there till the afflicting state of Avar in the country will be over. I have committed the stone building of the College to the care of a respectable family who live near it. One of its large rooms is employed a part of the day for the school of the day scholars of the parish of that locality, till some good teachers, monthly expected from Ireland, will open and keep the above College for Native pupils, half castes, and destitute children, for whom it has been established.

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NATIVE SCHOOLS.