E.-l

II

in force was passed. The number belonging to the schools at the end of 1878 exceeded the corresponding number for the year 1877 by 9,352. For the next year (1879) the increase was 10,526, and for the following year (1880) it was 6,835. Last year the increase was only 1,159, or about 13^ per cent, of the average annual increase of the three previous years. The average attendance of scholars for the iast quarter of 1881 compares still less favourably with that of former years, the increase for the year being only 337, whereas the average increase for each of the three previous years was 7,545. The increase of average attendance for the whole year is not so much below the mean of other years, the number for the year being 1,501, which is 21 per cent, of the mean for the three years preceding —7,132. The smallness of the increase for the year is due to several concurrent causes. In the first place, during the second quarter of the year a circular was sent to the Boards, directing them in future not to include any children under five years of age in their quarterly returns. The number of such children on the rolls at the end of 1880 was 2,621; it was probably above 2,700 at the end of June, 1881. Most, if not all, of these were suddenly removed from the school-rolls during the second quarter, and the number on the rolls fell during that quarter from 84,816 to 82,804. The change would not have been felt so much had it occurred in the fourth or the first quarter of a year, because the summer months usually bring large additions to the schools, while in the winter there are few or none. No recovery took place in the next quarter, but on the contrary a further diminution to the extent of 408, so that the whole number on the rolls was five less than it had been nine months before. During the last quarter there was a satisfactory increase of 1,164. The increase for the year was, as already stated, only 1,159, but it must be remembered that the addition of 1,159 to the rollnumbers is equivalent to an increase of 3,780 in the number of children above five years of age, because 2,621 children counted at the end of 1880 were below that age. In the second place, the school-attendance for several years was gaining rapidly on the population. Prom December, 1877, to December, 1880, the estimated increase of the population between five and fifteen years of age was 18,036, but during the same period the increase of the school-rolls was 26,713. The gain may be attributed to the abolition of school-fees, and the extension of the public-school system to new districts. The growth of the public schools during this period was, to some extent, at the expense of private schools, for the whole increase of attendance at schools of every kind, as shown by a comparison of the census returns of 1880 with those of 1877, was only 23,870. A disproportion of this kind between the increase of the population and that of the attendance at public schools must in the nature of things have a limit, and the statistics for this year suggest that the limit has been nearly reached. A third point to be observed is that the rate of increase of the population was slower in 1881 than in the two previous years. The estimated increase between five and fifteen years of age for 1879 was 7,962; for 1880 it was 6,274; last year it was only 4,122; and, as has been stated, 3,780 children over five years old were added to the rolls in the year. Further, several of the Boards report that serious epidemics prevailed last year : scarlatina at Auckland and the Thames; measles in Wanganui and North Canterbury; measles and scarlatina at Napier and Gisborne; diphtheria in Westland; measles and scarlet fever in Otago; and measles and other complaints in South Canterbury and Southland. The effect of these diseases in reducing the average attendance is not very apparent, for the proportion of the average attendance to the roll-numbers is nearly as good (76-4) for the whole colony as it was last year (76"6). Otago shows the greatest falling off in this respect; and Southland, Westland, South Canterbury, and Nelson suffered more than the colony taken as a whole. The following table contains the most important particulars of the attendance for the year. Table No. 10, Appendix, pages 42-56, which gives the details school by school, shows 27 more children on the rolls than appear in Table A, these children being under five years of age, and on that account excluded from all the more important calculations and statistics contained in this report.