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rather than more. On the other hand, the ancient " school-teaching," which consists of sitting in the midst of a class and hearing pupils "recite lessons " for five or six hours a day, will be even more obsolete than it is now. Should these contentions prove correct —and it is worth some trouble to find whether they are correct or not—the problem of manual work for Native schools would be as good as solved, for the hour or hour and a half saved could be devoted to technical occupations of one kind and another. Then, with an* hour and a half a day besides for singing or drill, and for pure recreation, a very pretty time-table for a day's occupations could be easily framed. 11. If, now, we had a thoroughly good time-table, and every other condition required for the giving of a really sound and duly varied education, and if, say, fifty boys and girls educated under such conditions were turned out really ready for their life's work by our boarding-schools yearly, then already there would have emerged, in very pronounced form, the problem which is even now somewhat worrying at times : How is it possible to give our educated young Maoris the very best opportunity of living good and useful lives ? This is the second of the problems with which we undertook to deal. As has been hinted, no complete general reply to this question has yet been obtained, unless in mere outline, although numerous isolated cases have been more or less satisfactorily dealt with. A sketch of an answer may be given in very few words, but it will be in the main of a negative character, having in it, however, one or two positive elements: (1.) Now and then a real Maori genius turns up. When one of these is fairly recognised, the opportunity should be made the most of, and no pains should be spared to give this genius a sound education, and full opportunity to do good to his people as a doctor, lawyer, or teacher of some kind. His example, and the encouragement it gives his people, will probably lead to substantial progress on all the lines that the Department has learnt to set a high value on. (2.) With this exception no young Maoris should stay away from their people more than a couple of years or so at a time, or long enough to get out of touch with them, and so be unable to re-establish or maintain thoroughly friendly relations with them, relations soundly based on reciprocal kindly feelings, and substantial benefits, also of the mutual order. (3.) As far as can be made out at present, it seems that girls who have been very long at boarding-schools often find considerable difficulty in adjusting themselves to the rougher phases of Maori life, and so encounter many hardships and trials that can do them no good and may bring about much harm. (4.) As it will probably always be the case that a considerable number of pupils will remain long at boarding-schools, and so, unless they are " geniuses," will render themselves unfit for ordinary Maori life, it appears very important indeed that a way out of their peculiar difficulty should be provided for them in the shape of a semi-Maori township, in which young Maoris could for a time learn to live the European kind of life, in and for which they have been long and carefully trained. There really seems to be an element of unwisdom in the employment for perhaps ten years or more of a method eminently calculated to make boys and girls unfit for life in a Maori settlement, and, when this training has been completed, to turn them adrift into the very midst of the conditions which they have been so sedulously rendered unfit to live in. However, this practice has now been almost consecrated by long usage, and it must probably be made the best of. The contention of this paper is, nevertheless, that if boarding-schools are to be of the highest possible utility to the Maori race, as such, and not merely to individuals, the residence of the great majority of pupils must not exceed three years at the very most. It must be admitted, however, that, as might be expected, pupils residing very long at a boarding-school are certain to become better scholars than they would if treated in the way here advocated ; but the long absence of the young Maori from his people will have so estranged him from them, that only rarely will he be of much use to them or they to him, except in cases in which the pupil educated at a boarding-school is strong enough, clever enough, and good enough to be a true patriot, who wishes to serve his people because he feels stirring within him the ability to do so. But we have to deal with what is, rather than what ought to be; and, as has just been said, the difficulty is that Maori pupils through long residence at boarding-schools become to a large extent unfitted for life in a Maori kainga. The remedy proposed in the report for 1899, and referred to above, was a Maori-pakeha township. Such a township should at first be taken charge of by a trustworthy European officer, and, say, a couple of respectable, middle-aged Maori " commissioners " —chiefs who had themselves been thoroughly educated at a boarding-school, and had become well acquainted with the European mode of life, and able to get on entirely without tapu, makutu, or tangihanga. If the settlement could be developed sufficiently quickly to warrant the early occasional employment of a Maori medical man, it would be very satisfactory to have one to look after the health of the settlers, and especially to see to the making of such sanitary arrangements as would tend to render his services as a healer less frequently necessary. The course of affairs in a settlement of this kind would reach the temporary needs of the educated class of young Maoris until they had acquired skill in the management of their own business. Of course it would be hoped and expected that many ordinary two- or three-year scholars would go to the Maori township directly after finishing their village school work, and would, after completing their terms, return to their homes, and at once begin to use their acquired aptitudes for the benefit of their own people, and to live constantly in the midst of them ; thus all the objects aimed at by the Government in establishing such a township would be in a fair way to be reached. 111. There is a very powerful and important reason why Maori boarding-school pupils should not be drawn from their homes entirely, unless when, from one cause or another, they have been so long and so completely dissevered from their people as to have become virtually pakehas rather than Maoris. The view referred to has been held by the Government for many years in a fragmentary and incomplete form. It may be called the biological view. Mr. H. B. Kirk, M.A., of this Department, has done much in the way of giving us clear views on this subject. Perhaps the case may be adequately stated in some such way as this : To systematically take the most promis3—E. 2.