E.—l

Table X shows the payments made Ly Government on account of inmates in private industrial schools, the recoveries, and the net expenditure by Government. The contributions from Charitable Aid Boards are made directly to the managers of these schools, and are not included in the recoveries shown.

TABLE X.—Government Expenditure on Private Schools (R.C.), 1901.

The Government or Charitable Aid Boards paid for the maintenance of the 32 children previously stated to be in corrective or other institutions or homes. The payments made by the Government were as follows : Eescue Home, Auckland, £2 '25.; St. Mary's Home, Karori, £23 Bs. ; Levin Memorial Home, Wellington, £28 125.; private home (special treatment), £29 Bs. 7d. ; St. Mary's Home, Richmond, Christchurch, £56 17s. sd; Samaritan Home, Christchurch, £18 25.; Mount Magdala, Christchurch, £146 16s. 4d. Six children belonging to St. Joseph's, Wellington, and St. Mary's, Nelson, private industrial schools were boarded at the Mission Home, Jerusalem, Wanganui (Mother Aubert's) — 4 for the whole year and 2 for ten months—the Government paying during the year £96 4s. for their maintenance. School for Deaf-mutes. The inclusion in the School Attendance Act of last session of provisions dealing with blind and deaf children marks an important step in the education of these unfortunate members of the community. Hitherto many parents, either through carelessness or wilfully, have neglected to send such children to the institutions maintained for their special instruction ; but now the Minister of Education has the power to enforce attendance, due provision being made for a contribution by parents towards the cost of maintenance or for free admission where parents are not in a position to contribute. The immediate consequence is an unusual increase in the number of candidates for admission to the Sumner School for Deaf-mutes, a fact which renders all the more urgent the need for new buildings. It is accordingly a matter for satisfaction that the plans have been completed, and a contract has been let for the erection of a portion of the buildings. In the design it has been arranged that the dormitories shall be on the ground floor, although raised somewhat above the level of the ground; this, together with special contrivances, will, it is hoped, take away even the remotest danger to life in case of fire. The class-rooms will be on the first floor, and, although such an arrangement may possess a few slight disadvantages, the arrangement has the great advantage that it will enable the rooms in which instruction is given to be extremely well lighted, always an important point in teaching children on the purely oral system. As regards the adoption of that system, it is a matter for congratulation that this colony from the first adopted the oral method of teaching, in which children are taught to converse by watching the lips of others. In America, where manual and mixed methods were at first largely in vogue, they are being rapidly discarded in favour of oral instruction, and New Zealand has accordingly been saved the expense and inconvenience of changing from inferior systems of deaf-mute education to that which is now almost universally admitted to be the best. Those called (improperly) semi-mutes, who possess in some degree the sense of hearing and have to a slight extent the power of articulation, need special treatment; such cases appear to be most successfully dealt with when they are boarded out with hearing people in the neighbourhood of the institution, and are taught in special classes. There are also some pupils that have hitherto

XXVII

School. Payments. Recoveries. Net Expenditure by Government. St. Mary's, Auckland St. Joseph's, Wellington St. Mary's, Nelson St. Vincent de Paul's, Dunedin a s. d. 1,427 9 0 284 19 0 1,464 8 11 73 0 0 3,249 16 11 £ s. a. £ s. d. 122 15 0 1,304 14 0 17 3 4 267 15 8 353 7 3 1,111 1 8 11 5 4 61 14 8 504 10 11 2,745 6 0 Totals