23

E.—l

District state in their report for last year that the receipts "accruing under the head of ' Secondary' have been added to the amount lodged in the Union Bank of Australia on fixed deposit, making a total of £462 10s. 7d., which sum is reserved towards the establishment of a superior school for girls, as formerly reported." Both of the sums above mentioned are included in Table S among the balances in hand. The report of the Commissioners of Westland District contains the following statement: " The revenue of the Commissioners has hitherto been mainly devoted to the payment of an overdraft at the Bank of New Zealand amounting to £791 os. 3d. at the time they took over charge of the Kumara Reserve from the Education Board. Had there been no overdraft the sum of £391 7s. 3d. would have gone to the funds for secondary education; and it is presumed that the sum thus diverted must be regarded as a debt due to that fund, which is to be reduced by any available moneys hereafter coming into the hands of the Commissioners." The bank overdraft referred to was reduced to £67 Bs. at the close of 1880, and it will be altogether extinguished in the course of the present year. It will probably be found necessary to go carefully into the Westland education reserves accounts for some years past, in order to arrive at a settlement of the claim made on behalf of the Secondary Education Eund.* The amount of rental received by the Commissioners on account of the secondary-education reserves is only about one-tenth of that derived from the reserves for primary education, although it was provided by "The Education Reserves Act, 1877," that one-fourth of the general education reserves in each provincial district should be set apart as an endowment for secondary education within the district. This is mainly owing to the circumstance that in the Provincial Districts of Canterbury and Otago nearly all the secondary-education reserves have been vested by Acts of the General Assembly in the governing bodies of particular secondary schools. In Canterbury, the Commissioners have now the control of only three-twentieths of the total value of the secondary-education reserves set apart under the Reserves Act of 1877. In Otago the total annual value of the secondary education reserves in 1879 was £2,738 ; but reserves of the annual value of £587 are all that now remain under the Commissioners' control. Last year's annual report supplied information of some interest respecting the apportionment of the education reserves in the several provincial districts.t Native Schools. In last year's report it was announced that the administration of affairs connected with Maori schools had been lately transferred to the Department of Education. The Organizing Inspector of Native Schools entered upon his duties at the beginning of the year. His report, with the statistics for the year, is printed in a separate Parliamentary paper. $ The Native Schools Code, which came into partial operation in August, and has been in full force since the beginning of April, has evidently imparted, a healthful stimulus to the work of all the schools. During the year 4 schools, with an average attendance of 21 in all, were given up, and 3 new schools opened, with an aA^erage attendance of 66 in all. At the end of the year 6 other small schools, with an average attendance of 43 in all, were closed. Since the beginning of this year 6 new schools have been opened, in districts which afford every promise of large attendances. The average attendance has risen from 1,042 (597 boys and 445 girls) in the last quarter of 1879, to 1,277 (724 boys and 553 girls) in the corresponding quarter of 1880. The average attendance for the whole year has been 1,240. The number on the roll at the end of the year was 1,623, as against 1,366 at the beginning. Of the 1,623 children on the roll, 1,241 are Maori, or between Maori and half-caste; 156 are half-caste; and 226 are either between half-caste and European, or European. Ninety-nine of the children are under five years old, 828 between five and ten, 581 between

* Abstracts of the earlier accounts of the Westland Reserves Funds are given on page 144 of the Appendix to the Second Annual Report of the Minister of Education : see Appendix to Journals of the House of Representatives, Sess. I 1879, H.-2. t See Appendix to Journals of the House of Representatives, 1880, H.-la, pages 19 and 20. j Appendix to Journals of the House of Representatives, 1881, E.-7.