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work, and the children get hold of the same notion). When this happens to be the case, it is always advisable that the master should be removed to another district as soon as possible. The cost of the removal of teachers for such reasons is a considerable item of expenditure on Maori schools, and one that cannot well be got rid of. Records. The school records are generally correctly, but not always neatly, kept. It is desirable that all teachers should be requested to keep copies of returns and requisitions sent by them to the department. These .would often be useful to themselves, to the department, and to the Inspector, and the keeping of them would not entail much extra trouble. Condition of Schoolrooms and other School-Buildings. Native schoolrooms are generally found to be neat and clean. In a few instances the rooms have been used as storehouses for flour, horse-feed, saddles, &c. In future, schoolrooms in which such things are found will 'be reported as untidy. In one or two schools I observed considerable want of neatness; books, papers, &c, were lying about anyhow. One or two school? rooms were found to be rather dirty. One was dirty and untidy in the extreme. Organization. A considerable time must elapse before this very important matter will be so far advanced as to leave no improvement to be desired. The Inspector is, in the main, responsible for the organization of Native schools. It is plain that until the teachers are well acquainted with the more modern methods of instruction, and are able to work rather complex time-tables successfully, ah attempt to organize all the schools in accordance with the most advanced ideas on the subject would be a great mistake, and would probably end in a rather ridiculous failure. The organization of Native schools, to be successful, must be a growth. Improvements have to be introduced as the circumstances of each school appear to afford a fair prospect of their being worked successfully. Much, I think, has already been done. In very many of the schools the work of the teachers is certainly becoming more effective through improved organization and the use of better methods. Some teachers that formerly worked hard, and produced very fair results, are now getting much better ones; while not a few other teachers, whose strenuous exertions were, through their defective technical knowledge of school organization and method, a mere beating of the air, are now doing really useful work. The introduction of the Native School Standards must be largely credited with this satisfactory alteration. By causing teachers to direct their efforts towards the attainment of definite ends, they have nearly done away with discursive and ill-directed teaching, the effect of which was, as disclosed by the results of carefully conducted examinations, to give the children a slight superficial acquaintance with many things, and a sound knowledge of nothing. The standards, too, have effected a great improvement in the classification of the children, a result that such standards nearly always bring about. Examinations. The Native School Standards are not high. A Maori child of fourteen that has attended school regularly for five years should be able to pass Standard IV. without much difficulty. There is, then, no reason why the examinations for the standards should not be conducted with considerable strictness. In fact, they are so conducted. No child is allowed to pass in any standard if he has failed in any one of the subjects required for that standard. In every instance it is required that the knowledge of the pupil that is being examined shall be sound and accurate as far as it goes. In such work as transcription, copying figures, and set arithmetic no mistake is tolerated. For Standards 111. and IV. three-fourths of the marks for arithmetic must be obtained. Very easy pieces are selected for the examination in reading; but the piece chosen must be thoroughly well road, or the child fails. Common words are chosen for the examination in .spelling, but these must be correctly spelt. Blots, mistakes, and careless writing in a copy-book disqualify for a pass in writing. A little latitude has been allowed in one subject only—the English of the standards. In future, I think, this, the most important of the Native school subjects, should be as strictly dealt with as any of the others. While, however, the answering of the children must be thoroughly satisfactory, if they are to pass the standard examinations, the greatest care is taken to make the pupils thoroughly understand the meaning of every question put to them, so that the examiner may be able to feel sure that every failure that has been made has been owing to ignorance on the part of the child that has failed, and not to its misconception of the meaning of the questions given, or to its want of readiness. Great injustice might be done to a Native school and its teacher by an examiner accustomed to use only the methods of questioning that are found to be serviceable in European schools. It is often the case that Native children who make a very poor attempt at answering the first two or three questions put to them at an examination succeed in the end in passing their examination very creditably. The same thing holds good of a whole school. The first impression that an examiner receives of a Native school is, generally, that the children know nothing. As the work proceeds, and the children get acquainted with the examiner, the latter discovers that his first-formed opinion has to be modified very considerably. It may be that in the end he will be fairly astonished to find that Maori children have