Ordinance with that which has taken place since, it becomes apparent that the duty of inaugurating the new system has required more constant attention than before.

P R I Z E S.

The Board has, with the view of exciting emulation among the children in the different schools, adopted the plan of awarding prizes to such as may have distinguished themselves for continued diligence and attention. A list of the names of these children will be found appended to the present Report.

The Board is of opinion that this practice is one likely to be attended with beneficial results, and would submit to your Honor whether it would not be expedient to extend and consolidate the principle by creating permanent endowments on a considerable scale for the benefit of those children who may compete successfully for the rewards held out to them.

The Board suggests that reserves of land be made, to be subsequently conveyed to the Superintendent in trust for the purpose. The proceeds might be distributed either in money or might be applied to the payment of expenses of board and tuition at the “Superior Schools” in the Province, or for the maintenance of the successful candidates at one of the Universities in the mother country; or they might be distributed partly in one form and partly in the other.

In any case, it seems to the Board that the competition should not be confined to a single school, but the best pupils in the whole Province, at whatever school they may receive instruction, should be qualified to compete. This, besides exciting the emulation of the pupils, would be calculated also to impart a healthy stimulus to the respective school authorities, and induce them to raise as much as possible the standard of attainments in the schools with which they are connected.

REPORTS OF INSPECTOR.

In the appendix will be found the detailed Reports of the Inspector of Schools from which it will be seen that the progress made in the instruction of the children is upon the whole satisfactory, although doubtless many deficiencies exist.

The Board has adopted the plan of communicating to the respective local committees the substance of such portions of the information therein given as may appear to call for remark, and this whether such information is favourable or unfavourable. In the latter case the Board, after allowing a reasonable space of time to elapse for the correction of such defects as may be pointed out, purposes to hold a special personal inspection in order to ascertain how far these defects may have been corrected.

This method appears well calculated to bring pointedly to the notice of the school authorities those deficiencies which require special attention, and which, though obvious enough to the practised eye of the Inspector, and indeed observable by strangers, may frequently, from long habit, have become so familiar to those more intimately connected with the school as to be to them scarcely perceptible. The experiment, so far as it has been tried, appears to justify the anticipations of the Board.

BUILDINGS.

The buildings completed since the date of the last Report are the following:—

1. At Ashley Bank, a school-room and master’s house detached.

2. At the Halswell, a school-room and master’s house under the same roof.

3. At Templeton, a school-room and master’s house detached.

4. At Timaru, a school-room and master’s house under the same roof.

5. At Heathcote Valley, a school-room.

6. At Saltwater Creek, a school-room. Here a site has been acquired by the residents for £50, and £70 has been contributed towards the buildings. Thus £120 has been raised by local efforts, and £150 contributed by the Board.

7. At Leithfield, a commodious house is now in course of erection for the use of the master, with accommodation for a limited number of boarders. It has been thought not unlikely that many persons resident in the country to the north of the Kowai, at too great a distance from the school to allow them to send their children as day scholars, will be glad to avail themselves of