NELSON GOVERNMENT GAZETTE. 115

teenth year. Many, indeed, of the best candidates
for assistant-teachers have received all their
education here. No school in the Province turns
out so many good readers and writers, in proportion
to the numbers. The spelling is only fair, and the
arithmetic scarcely up to the standard of last year, a
large proportion of the girls in the second class
having failed to pass. None failed, however, in the
first class. Map-drawing is most successfully
taught. The discipline is good.

Second Division, Hardy-street: Miss Dement; assistant, Miss Percival.—(80.)—Good work is being done
here by two teaching brothers, both of whom have
been trained entirely in our own town schools. The
children who are periodically drafted into this division
from the Preparatory school are taught to read dis-
tinctly and to write neatly. They also work ques-
tions in arithmetic, as far as compound division,
very correctly, none in the first class, and every few
in the second, failing to pass. The dictation of the
two first classes is also very creditable.

Preparatory: Miss Cother; assistants Miss Hough
and Miss Leach.—(193.)—Although a third teacher
has been appointed here (whom I found in charge of
64 children, pent up in a small-class-room, capable
of accommodating not more than 30), the numbers
have increased so much that additional school-room
should be provided at once. The best way of meet-
ing the difficulty would be to build a school adjoin-
ing the Bridge-street schools, for boys only. The
teachers continue to keep excellent order, and to
impart more instruction than I should have expected
from them under the circumstances.

Haven-road, Mr J. L. Hodgson; assistants, Miss
Witney, Miss Burns.—(153.)—This school, which
was notoriously over-crowded during the greater
part of the last twelve months, has been slightly
relieved lately by the opening of two new schools,
one at the Port and another in Toi-toi Valley. The
number on the roll is still very large, although the
average of attendance continues to be singularly
low. An unusually small proportion of the scholars,
45 out of 336, have remained at this school after
they have completed their twelfth year, and, what
is worse, I have reason to believe that the great
majority of those who leave so young receive no
further schooling elsewhere. I found that the
children read well throughout, that writing was well
taught, and that the dictation of the upper classes
was good. It is to be remarked that the arithmetic
here, as at Cobden, is very unpretentious, but also
very sound. Only a comparatively small proportion
of the scholars attempted the higher rules, but all
who did succeeded. Indeed, three scholars only out
of the 89 present in the upper division failed to pass
in their respective standards.

Hampden-street: Mr Sunley; assistant, Miss Percy.—(92.)—In several respects this school has improved
since last year. The arithmetic, especially when
the age of the scholars is considered, is remarkably
good, none of those present in the upper classes
having failed to pass in the highest standards. These
classes also know more of grammar and geography,
and write more correctly from dictation than they
did. The reading is only moderately good, the writ-
ing indifferent. The discipline of the upper division is
has certainly improved, that of the lower division is
excellent. I was surprised to find that so few
children over twelve years of age now attend this
school, 10 only out of a yearly roll of 170 having
reached that age.

St. Mary\'s, Boys': Mr Richards; second master, Mr
Williamson.—(113.)—The number of boys present at
my examination was beyond what the schoolroom
could fairly accommodate, and beyond the teaching
powers of the present staff. I was given to under-
stand, however, that this large influx of scholars was
of comparatively recent date. Nevertheless, good
order was maintained, under obvious difficulties, and
the boys throughout were well taught, the arithmetic
being exceptionally good. Not one boy in the first
class failed to solve correctly every question in the
highest paper of arithmetic set. The upper classes
are also very well grounded in the geography of New
Zealand. Too little attention is paid to the sounding
of the initial \"h\" and the final \"g,\" this defect
marring to a great extent the effect of the otherwise
good reading.

St. Mary\'s, Girls': taught by Sisters of Charity.—(152.)—This school still well deserves the high repu-
tation it has attained for good organisation and sound
teaching. The reading, arithmetic, and dictation are
quite equal to what they were last year, the writing
being, on the whole, better. History is the weak
point of the school, none of the classes acquitting
themselves even tolerably in this branch. The use
of so meagre and ill-written an abridgment of Eng-
lish history as those of Gilbert\'s may have some-
thing to do with this general backwardness. The
teaching staff of the lower division has been strength-
ened, and the good effect of this on the younger
children is manifest.

Port School: Miss Blackmore.—(76.)—This school,
which is intended only for children under nine years
of age, was opened five months ago, with the view of
relieving the overcrowded Haven-road school. I find,
however, that many children who have not previously
attended any school come here regularly. The
scholars are being fairly and rationally taught,
and are in good order. There is some danger, how-
ever, lest the multiplication of elementary schools in
the town of Nelson, each under the charge of a single
inexperienced mistress, should be carried too far.
There must always be some waste of power where
four or five classes are entrusted to a single teacher.
In the country districts this is sometimes unavoid-
able, but in the towns, as a rule, it seems to me that
the fewer schools we have the better.

Toi-toi Valley: Miss Sunley.—(42.)—This school
had been open only a month when I examined it.
The children were orderly, and fairly taught, but I
observed several older scholars who lived not far from
more advanced schools, which they had left for no
better reason than the pure love of change, or possibly
with the idea that they would thus escape from a
wholesome but irksome discipline. It is clear to me
that every new school which is opened within easy
reach of another school does, to a very appreciable
extent, weaken the bonds of discipline by affording
an additional harbour of refuge to the indolent and
refractory. To any one who has studied the question
it must be simply marvellous how, with the present
extraordinary facilities offered to children for one
changing one school for another, the teachers of the
Nelson town schools contrive to preserve even the
semblance of discipline.

Clifton Terrace: Mrs. Harrington.—(27.)—I have
every reason to be satisfied with what has been
done here during the past twelve months. The
children are more animated, and can give a far
better account of what they have been reading than
formerly. The work of the school is carried on in a
most systematic fashion.