E.—2

10

physiology." " Standards 1., 11., and 111. were strong. Of the 158 'subject-marks' gained 107 were marked E (excellent)." "The two Sisters in charge of the literary work of the school have attained to what is from our point of view a high degree of efficiency, and their teaching as a whole leaves little or nothing to be desired." "The work of girls who had been some considerable time at the school was quite free from traces of copying, but two or three of the more recently admitted pupils had not yet got beyond the 'mutual help' stage." " Drawing, singing, callisthenics, and needlework are all admirably taught. On the whole the results of the examination were quite satisfactory." The Protestant Native Girls' School, Hukarere. —This school was inspected on the Bth of February, 1897, and examined on the Bth of December. The inspections at this school and at St. Joseph's took place rather early; but this is not always disadvantageous; it sometimes tends to give a useful bias to the course of instruction during the ensuing year. The following notes appear on the examination schedules: " Specimens of more advanced composition—viz., original essays done in school —were given in. They were far above the ordinary run of our English work, but of rather unequal merit." "A 'matriculation class' had been at work for a short time; the progress that had been made was very satisfactory." "In the case of the senior girls the knowledge of their subjects was generally adequate." " The drill was quite unexceptionable and undoubtedly health-giving." " Drawing and singing are well and carefully taught. The elder girls have a satisfactory knowledge of plain cooking and domestic household work." "Perhaps the questions set for Standard IV. were rather difficult; but at anyrate this was the weakest class in the school." The lower classes did very well; in Standard 111. there was only one weak pass. The sanitary arrangements at Hukarere and St. Joseph's now seem to be very satisfactory. Native Boys' Boarding-school, St. Stephen's, Parnell, Auckland. —This school was inspected on the 11th and 12th of February. Thirty-three Maori boys were present. These were all good steady workers, and had a clean and healthy appearance. A very pleasing feature of this school is its excellence in the extra subjects. Singing, drawing, and drill are all exceptionally well done. Technical work is done by the senior boys. The buildings were about to be repainted by them, under the direction of a competent painter. Work of this sort commends itself as likely to give the boys a kind and even an amount of technical knowledge that will be very useful to them. With regard to the technical work generally, it has been proposed to let each scholar attend all the lessons for a whole month, three boys to form a Class or squad, the lessons being given twice a week from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. In this way each boy could receive consecutively eight, nine, or perhaps ten lessons, and the course would be repeated at least three times in each boy's two-years scholarship. It is thought that this plan would secure much more solid progress than can be made when the lessons given are spread " few and far between " over the whole two years of a scholarship. The result of the inspection as a whole was very pleasing. At the examination five boys were presented for the " second year," and all passed; of six boys for the first year four passed. In the Fourth Standard five out of six passed ;in the Third, seven out of eight; in the Second nine were presented, and all passed; in the First, three out of six passed. What weakness there was appeared in the English, and this subject was nowhere very weak. The Native College, Te Aute, Hawke's Bay. —Te Aute was inspected on the 9th February. Extracts from the report may be given as follows : " Year by year the Te Aute grounds are becoming more picturesque, and hence better fitted to arouse and maintain in the minds of pupils feelings of respect for and devotion to the institution." " The rule is mild; principle, carefully built up, does the work sometimes assigned to fear of punishment by those who do not understand. The school tone is very good ; boys that have been here long may be trusted." It is rather difficult to characterize in a few words the work done at the examination. Perhaps the report on one of the classes, say the fifth, will give a sufficiently good idea of the work of the whole school; this report runs thus: "Latin, pleasing; English, satisfactory; Euclid, uneven and rather disappointing; algebra and arithmetic, good ; geography, satisfactory ; physiology, as book-work, generally good." The work in English would have been even stronger than it was if the paper had been somewhat shorter and the pupils had been able to devote more time to the elaboration of the essays, paraphrasing, &c, prescribed in it. Two of the boys appeared to be rather overweighted with the work of the class; the others did very well indeed. Perhaps the following extract from a more recent report will be of some interest : " Methods : Under this head one could desire to characterize rather than criticize the work of some of the Te Aute masters." " Mr. T., I take it, endeavours to secure thoroughness at all costs. The same position is worked up to from this direction and from that, until at last it seems pretty plain to him that it has been actually reached; security with regard to this point is gained by means of adequate testing. This method has, in Mr. T.s hands, no tendency to become tedious ; every attack on the position has some new element in it, some new interest, some new incentive to attention is constantly being introduced. Thus it comes about that the pupils hardly notice that they are doing the same work over and over again and acquiring more complete mastery of it every time. I do not think that boys of fair intelligence could fail to become sound under this kind of teaching." " Mr. B.s work seems to amount to this : His class are set to do work that previous recent experience has shown him to be well within the boys' reach, and assistance is afforded where it is needed. Soon it becomes plain to their teacher that the boys know this, and do not know that, and only partly know the other thing. That is to say that Mr. 8., in the course of his supervision of the boys' work, learns where they are strong and where weak. Then the individualistic mode of treatment is dropped; the master now lectures the class, as a class, on dark and doubtful points, and gradually glides, so to say, into hints, statements of principle, &c, which are to serve as a guide to the work of the next lesson in the same subject." " Mr. W. was working at a disadvantage —he had charge of another teacher's class; but previous experience had shown that he has rare skill in preparing young Maoris for entering on the thorny path that may