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I. KXTRACT FROM THE THIRTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION. PRIMARY EDUCATION. Public Schools. Number of Schools. Thk number of public schools open at the end of 1910 was 2,096, as against 2,057 for the year 1909, an increase of 39. In Table A the schools are classified according to the yearly average attendance. 11l a number of cases schools maintained in grades under Schedule A of clause 2 of the staffs and salaries regulations are included in this table in such grades, although the average attendance of these schools respectively for 1909 was below the minimum of the grades as indicated in Table A. The classification is in accordance with the provisions of the Education Amendment Act, 1908, which came into operation on the Ist January, 1909. The number of small schools with an average attendance not exceeding 15, which in 1908 rose from 447 to 504, and in 1909 to 569, has fallen to 527, still slightly more than a quarter of the number of public schools in the Dominion. But the decrease in the number of Grade 0 and Grade 1 schools has been more than compensated by the increase in the next higher grades, Grades II and 111, the former containing 31 schools more than last year, the latter 25. Schools with an average attendance of 35 or under are sole-teacher schools. On referring to Table A it will be seen that there were 1,280 such schools in 1910. But, as already stated, in some cases schools are maintained in a higher grade than their average attendance would appear to warrant. Thus, in Grade IV there were in 1910 20 schools the average attendance of which did not warrant the appointment of an assistant teacher. There were therefore altogether in 1910 1,300 schools in charge of sole teachers, as against 1,266 in 1909. In other words, in 1909 soleteacher schools formed 61-5 per cent, of the total number of public schools; in 1910 62 per cent. The aggregate average attendance of schools of this kind in 1909 was 22,859, or 17*1 per cent, of the total average attendance for the Dominion ; in 1910 the aggregate was 22,793, or 16-7 per cent. The number of schools with two or more teachers was, in 1909, 791. In 1910 the number was 796. Of these schools there were, both years, 28 schools with an average attendance exceeding 600. During the year 1910, 76 schools were closed; as in previous years, several of these schools, although reckoned as closed in their original form, were reopened in another; some were amalgamated, some half-time schools became full-time schools ; and so on. Including such reopened schools, the total number of schools

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