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not recognize—the principle of payment by results. The English code contains provisions—first, for grants-in-aid according to average attendance, with additions for singing and for good discipline; secondly, for grants-in-aid paid for individual passes in reading, in writing, and in arithmetic, according to standards; thirdly, for grants-in-aid according to average attendance if classes pass creditably in one or two of the following subjects—viz., grammar, history, elementary geography, and plain needlework; fourthly, for individual passes in two or three specific subjects selected from the following list—English literature, mathematics, Latin, Erench, German, mechanics, animal physiology, physical geography, botany, and domestic economy. The Scotch code is constructed on a similar basis, but includes in the list of specific subjects, in addition to the subjects of the English code, Greek, chemistry, light and heat, and magnetism and electricity. In this colony the payment is not made according to results, but takes the form of a capitation grant sufficiently liberal to pay a staff of teachers competent to give the children of New Zealand an education not inferior to that which can be obtained in the primary schools of England and Scotland. At the same time it will be observed that the following subjects, for which the Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council on Education make payments, are not required by the New Zealand standards: mathematics, Latin, Greek, Erench, German, and some branches of physical and natural science. Drawing is not included in the English and Scotch codes, but it is encouraged —as are also several other important subjects —by payments made through the Science and Art Department, to classes which are attended by many pupils of primary schools. On the whole, therefore, it seems that the standard programme is not more ambitious than the corresponding programmes in the mother-country, and in New South Wales taken as an example of the colonies. The reports of the Inspectors, who are officers of the several Boards, and do not receive direct instructions from the department, show that the definition of work in some parts of the programme is not sufficiently precise to secure uniformity of practice in examining according to the standards. On the next occasion of reprinting the programme, notes will be inserted for the purposes of elucidation and emphasis. Meanwhile, Inspectors should, in any case of doubt, lean to the side of strictness in the interpretation of the standards. On the one hand, the demands made by the standards should be rigorously exacted. They are to be taken "as representing the minimum of attainments of which the Inspector will expect evidence at each stage of a scholar's progress " (see Regulation 6) ; and they ought to be passed in such a way as to indicate that the candidate could, without much difficulty, do better work than is demanded of him at examination. On the other hand, the Inspector should keep his questions strictly within the limits prescribed. Eor example, in the case of geography for the Third Standard, a knowledge of the countries and capitals of Europe is required. The terms do not suggest that the children will be expected to answer questions as to the population, the standing army, or the political constitution of a country. They satisfy the demands of the standard if they can readily and correctly answer such questions as the following: What countries of Europe have a western sea-board ? What countries of Europe have no coast-line ? Name the capitals of those countries which are situated in the southern peninsulas of Europe. So, again, where " knowledge of places of political, historical, and commercial importance " is required, the pupil complies with the requirements of the standard if he can give a verbal description of the position of such places when they are named, and can point them out upon a blank map. It is not necessary that he be able also to say in every case what circumstances or events have rendered the place important. The standard regulations do not prescribe the manner in which geography shall be taught, but they are so framed as, if strictly observed, to discourage the learning of long lessons from books, and to encourage great familiarity with the relative positions of countries, chief towns, principal rivers, &c, as represented in maps, supplemented by such general knowledge of geography as is gained by constant reference to maps in connection with the reading of history, and with the oral lessons in the outlines of physical geography. The globe and the map, as the best available representations of the world regarded as the object of geographical knowledge, should be the immediate