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personal habits can be cultivated, and a degree of discipline maintained, quite beyond the reach of an ordinary day-school. The results obtained from these institutions, as witnessed by the reports of the Government Inspectors, are very satisfactory, and conclusively show that with the same advantages the Maori is in every way the intellectual equal of the Englishman. Whether he possesses the necessary elements of character to apply this intellectual equality to the practical purposes of every-day life is another question. Of course the Government system of education is purely secular. I wish that it could have been otherwise. As one who firmly believes that education, to be successful even from the State point of view, must be based on Christian principles, openly confessed and plainly expounded, I wish that the work of educating the Maoris had not been left to a Government committed of necessity to a secular system of instruction. Seeing that the history of the Maoris has all along been intimately connected with missionary effort, it seems strange that the work of initiating a system of popular education was left for the Government. Mission work is still carried on amongst the Maoris, and there are numbers of good men and true earnestly engaged in it. One of the North Island bishoprics—that of Waiapu, held by Dr. Stuart —is essentially a missionary office. There are missionary archdeacons, missionary clergymen, Native pastors, and Native catechists, all labouring for the spiritual welfare of the Maoris. Such labours as theirs cannot prove barren of results. Indeed, in many directions and in many ways the results are manifest. What is needed, however, in addition to religious effort is social and sanitary reform. I have said that the Maoris are lazy ; they are also dirty, and consequently unhealthy. Sanitation must go hand-in-hand with christianisation, or the need of mission work will soon pass away. Unfortunately, missionaries appear to take Maori dirt for granted. There is, indeed, an excellent little book in circulation, published both in Maori and English, setting forth in the simplest language the need of sanitary and social reform.* It forms part of the Native-school course of reading, and is, I believe, widely read by the adult Maoris. But the writer of this is the Inspector of Maori Schools, not a missionary. I know of one instance in which this practical little work has been productive of excellent results. A young man, for some time a pupil in one of the boarding institutions, has recently, by the death of his father; an influential chief, succeeded to a high position amongst his own people. From his own experience of a higher stylo of living, and partly, no doubt, from the instruction he has received in the book referred to, he has set himself vigorously to work to effect a sanitary reform in the condition of those over whom he exercises a certain authority. He insists upon a better description of house, better ventilation, and improved drainage. He doubtless finds it no easy task to more his elders in this matter, for mankind everywhere seems to cling to dirty habits with a tenacity that in a better cause would be positively admirable. Of all reformers the sanitary reformer has the hardest work to do. The Maori, to be made clean from a sanitary point of view, must be caught young, and so I imagine that, in this matter as well as in others affecting the welfare of the whole race, we must be content to wait till the effects of popular education in its widest sense begin to make themselves generally felt.

No. 3. The Inspector of Native Schools to the Inspector-General of Schools. Sir,— . Wellington, 19th February, 1892. In accordance with the terms of your standing instructions, I have the honour to lay before you my report on the work done in the Native schools of New Zealand, and on their general condition during the year 1891. Number op Schools. At the end of the year 1890 there were seventy-two Native schools in full working-order. In the course of 1891 three schools were opened and four were closed. During the year, therefore, or some portion of it, seventy-five schools were in operation ; and at the end of the year seventy-one schools were open—viz., sixty-seven village schools and four boarding-schools. Changes : New Schools opened, and Schools reopened or closed. After the Tarawera eruption in 1886 it was found necessary to close the Te Teko School, because the whole district had been covered with volcanic ash, and had become for a time almost uninhabitable. This consequence of the eruption has now been so far got the better of that the district is quite as able to support a population as it was before the eruption, if, indeed, there has not been actual improvement. In consequence of this change for the better, the often-repeated request of the Natives that their school should be reopened has been complied with, and the new beginning has been made under favourable auspices. A very successful reopening of the Wairewa (Little Eiver) School has also taken place. The Maoris of the district could not make up their minds to send their children to the public school in the neighbourhood, believing, probably, that they would not be welcomed there. Promises were given that there should be a good attendance at the Native school. Plainly, it was undesirable that the Maori children should be allowed to grow up illiterate, and it was thought advisable, on the whole, to accede to the Maoris' request. An entirely new school has been opened at Whangaruru as an experiment. This district is some miles south of Cape Brett, and has a considerable population. Should the experiment succeed, satisfactory accommodation for the pupils and their teacher will probably have to be provided. Of the four schools closed during the year, one, the Waikare School, had long been weak, and it would almost certainly have been closed many years ago had it not seemed certain that none of the Waikare or Waihaha children could be educated without it. At last, however, the attendance

* " Health for the Maori," by J. H. Pope. Government of New Zealand : Wellington,