The Commission desire cordially to acknowledge the assistance which has been afforded them at a considerable expense of time and trouble on the part of those who have sent replies to their enquiries.

The Provincial Government applied, at the suggestion of the Commission, through the General Government, for copies of the Acts relating to education in operation in the different Australian colonies, together with reports of inspectors and such other documents as were calculated to throw light upon the subject.

The work of the Commission has been considerably impeded by the delay which has taken place on the part of those addressed in furnishing the various returns above alluded to, and moreover those furnished by the masters of the schools proved, on examination, so incomplete, and in many cases so obviously inaccurate, as to necessitate a further enquiry in other quarters. As an illustration of the nature of the inaccuracies which occur in these returns, the Commission may mention that in one case the average attendance of the children during the year is stated as greater than the whole number on the books for the same period.

The information applied for from the Australian colonies at the commencement of the enquiry in April only came in a complete form to the hands of the Commission at the commencement of July.

All these circumstances made the presentation of a final report which should deal with the whole subject previous to the session of the Provincial Council a matter of impossibility; the Commission have therefore presented an interim report adverting only to those points which they conceive require immediate attention.

Pending the delay which has necessarily taken place from the reasons above adverted to, the Commission have in the meantime employed themselves in endeavouring to gain a knowledge of the working of the various educational systems in other parts of the world by the study of such books as were accessible to them. Although these systems have a general bearing on the subject, and supply many valuable hints in relation to the various questions which occur, the Commission do not conceive it necessary to enter upon the details of this branch of their enquiry for the following reasons.

In the first place, it would have been altogether impossible to obtain accurate information upon the details of the European systems without an expenditure of money and a loss of time which would have extended the enquiry beyond all reasonable limits, and would have been after all incommensurate with the value of the results.

In the second place, the Commission considered that these systems are for the most part the growth of many generations, and so intimately connected with the peculiar character of the people, and the social and political organization of the countries to which they belong, as to make them inapplicable as guides in framing the particular form of machinery most suitable to a new country.

Omitting, then, any detailed exposition of the Educational systems in operation in older and more distant countries, which from the scantiness of the available materials must have been necessarily incomplete, and therefore not improbably misleading, the enquiry has been confined to the state of education, and the mode in which it is administered, among communities nearer as to locality, similar to our own as regards the tone and character and circumstances of the people, and with respect to which information was more readily obtainable.

As to the form of the report, it appears to the Commission that the most convenient mode of arranging the results at which they have arrived will be to divide their report under two principal heads, directing attention in the first instance to matters of fact, and secondly to draw such conclusions from these facts as may seem applicable to the circumstances of this province. It will be seen at once how desirable it is that this distinction should be carefully maintained, when the difference in the nature of the materials collected is considered. The statement of facts must always possess, as such, a certain value of its own, but the conclusions founded upon them, being matters of opinion, may or may not prove correct on examination. By keeping the two separate, the former may be made available in future enquiries quite independently of the weakness or incorrectness of the latter. Acting upon this view, the Commission have devoted the former division of the report, first, to a consideration of the different Educational systems of the Australian colonies, and of the chief of the other provinces of New Zealand, making such a digest of the principal points in these systems as shall give a tolerably accurate insight into the principles on which they are founded and of the spirit in which they are administered; after this, but with considerably greater detail, various facts relating to the state of education in this province have been introduced under three sub-divisions,—

1st. An examination of some of the educational statistics of the province.

2nd. A review of the general state of education in Canterbury.

3rd. An exposition of facts more particularly connected with the religious aspect of the Educational Question.

It is conceived that a study of these different systems, and a knowledge of the plans adopted for solving the problem which presents itself everywhere in the same, or in a similar, form, would create a familiarity with the whole subject, and draw attention most effectively to the points which involve the real difficulties to be dealt with in organizing a new system.