E— No. 9a.

to the end of the month, I beg to state that such an anticipation, which never took place before this visit, and will never, I hope, take place again, was made merely by a distraction of the clerk, who, having received the order to prepare all the accounts of the establishment for the first quarter of this year, ending with March, and to send them to the diocesan administration, marked the roll under the impression, not of the date of the month, but of the roll itself, as if it were then to be closed, and to be sent with the other accounts. But the clerk having observed her mistake, left the roll as it was, with the anticipated certainty that the regular attendance of the pupils at the school would be quite real, and if not, the strokes of the roll for presences would be erased, to leave the places in blank as marks of absences, which were improbable; and the fact is, that from the 26th of March up to the end of it, the regular presences of the pupils have proved their anticipated certainty. I must here subjoin, that the above mistake would be very little minded by persons who would have heard tho explanations which your Lordship gave about it to Mr. H. Taylor, and who would know the state of this Institution of Native girls. It is not a day or a village school, in which daily calls are required in the school-room ; but Nazareth Institution is a regular boarding-school, with sacred mistresses, one as a manager, another as a teacher, and a third one as guardian, and with fenced-in enclosure and regulations, which lead each pupil for every moment of the day, viz., for prayers, studies, meals, and schooling. No one can be absent from the school without being at once known, and being to be punished for every wilful violation of the regulations. In such a state of things, by the only fact that the pupil is within our boarding-school, it is certain that she is in the school-room, to attend to the schooling at each time it takes place ; and consequently by the fact also of the residence of the pupils within the establishment, the roll does not matter almost, and becomes a kind of matter of form towards the justice of the law, which grounds its application of grant to the pupils upon the reality of the daily attendance to the school, aud their boarding residence in the establishment. At all events, my Lord, this reflection will not prevent at all, in the future, our regularity concerning the keeping of the roll, according to the wishes of the Civil administration. I have the honor to be with profouud respect and great devotedness,

My Lord,

Tour Lordship's most obedient humble Servant, Mary J. Baptist. To the Right Rev. Dr. Pompallier, Bishop of Auckland.

Enclosure 2 in No. 3. THE TEACHER OF ST. FRANCIS' COLLEGE TO THE RIGHT REVEREND DR. POMPALLIER, R. C. BISHOP OF AUCKLAND. R. C. College for Native Alale Pupils at Freeman's Bay, August 2nd, 1563. Aly LordId reply to your enquiry about the Report of Mr. Taylor. 26th June, page 2, paragraph Ist, in which he states that on his visit of this College at Freeman's Bay, 26th March, a lad absent three or four days Avas still marked as present on the roll, I beg to state that that pupil was permitted to reside for a few days at the stone house of North Shore, where he Avas supposed to receive his boarding and schooling, as it is the custom AA'hen, now and then, pupils go there from here for accomplishing some domestic commissions for the house at Freeman's Bay. Now, as it is morally certain that the boarding and schooling is given to them there, then for the sake of accounts' simplification, their names and the marks of the roll for their schooling continue to be kept at the house of Freeman's Bay, Avhere they habitually reside; for the pupils of the house at Freeman's Bay, and those of the stone building at North Shore, although separated by Shoal Bay, are, morally speaking, considered as pupils of one and the same college, consisting of two real boarding and school houses. In fact in both houses they are housed, taught, and boarded according to the same regulations, Avhich strictly oblige each of the pupils to be daily at the school. So, in such circumstances, to ascertain their regular attendance at the school, the roll is of very little importance ; for the fact itself of their stay in one of the .avo above buildings, may prove habitually and satisfactorily the attendance sought for ; and all that is required by the law is accomplished, viz., the pupils are in the residences of the colleges, boarded, and receiA-e a due schooling. Still if, by exception, it might happen some of the pupils passing from one house to the other for a feAV days, would be absent from the schooling during the day, and from the residence at night, his absence Avould certainly be knoAvn, and the places of the roll for strokes would be put in a due time in blank, for the returns to be sent to the Civil administration. Noav such has been the case concerning the lad (called Eria) mentioned by Mr. Taylor in his report of the 26th June. As I have been informed that that pupil absented himself from the school at North Shore, on account of his having been at some of his relations in the neighbourhood for a few days, then I left blank the places for strokes, in a manner relative to the number

3

NATIVE SCHOOLS.