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printed on page 155 of the Appendix to last year's report. The Boards were requested to include in their annual reports such information as they might be able to furnish respecting the number of banks which had been established, and the success which had attended their operations. The reports show that the Boards of Auckland and Nelson thoroughly disapproved of the proposed scheme, and declined even to distribute the documents forwarded to them by the department, and that the other Boards, although they circulated the regulations, have shown, in a greater or less degree, want ot sympathy with the proposal. The chief objection stated has almost invariably been that the extra work which the establishment and management of the proposed school savings banks would entail upon School Committees and teachers is such as to render the scheme impracticable. The Wellington Board reports that a savings bank has for some time been carried on in the Te Aro School, but that it has no connection with the Board. In North Canterbury two School Committees have applied for the necessary permission to open a penny bank, but in neither case had operations been begun at the close of 1879. The Westland Board reports that a penny bank has been established in connection with the No-Town School. A copy of the audited accounts of this bank is included in the Board's report. Institutions eor Secondary and Higher Education. Very full information respecting the institutions established for the promotion of the secondary and the higher education is contained in the reports of the lioyal Commission appointed to inquire into and report upon the operations of the University of New Zealand, and its relations to the secondary schools of the colony.* The information furnished by this report is therefore not so full as would otherwise have been necessary. The following public institutions have been in operation during the past year: The University of New Zealand, the University of Otago, Canterbury College, Auckland College and Grammar School, Auckland Girls' High School, Wellington College, Christchurch Girls' High School, Otago Boys' High School, Otago Girls' High School, and Southland Girls' High School. Nelson College, and Christ's College and Grammar School, Christchurch, wliich are incorporated by public Acts, may also be regarded as public schools. The following institutions of a more or less public character were also in operation during the year : St. John's College, Auckland; Church of England Grammar School, Auckland; Wesley College, Auckland ; Bishopdale Theological College, Nelson; Boys' Trust School, Napier; Wanganui Collegiate or Industrial School; and the Bishop's School, Nelson. The Thames Boys' and Girls' High School, and the Timaru High School, which were constituted by Acts of the General Assembly in 1878, have been opened since the close of last year.- The building for the Boys' High School, Christchurch, is in course of erection, and will be completed about the beginning of 1881. The Governors of the New Plymouth High School have secured a very ample and suitable site, and they purpose beginning the erection of a building very shortly. The governing bodies of the proposed high schools at Ashburton, Oamaru (Waitaki), Wanganui, and Whangarei have been constituted, but they have not yet taken any steps for the erection of buildings or the establishment of the schools. The governors of Wellington College, owing to the want of funds, have as yet been unable to establish the high school for girls authorized by the Act of 1878. The annual reports of the University of New Zealand, the University of Otago, and the Canterbury College, with correspondence and papers, are submitted independently. A summary of the income and expenditure for the year 1879 of the more public of the secondary schools, and the general statements of their respective accounts for the same period, are contained in the appendix. The following summary has been compiled from returns furnished by the governing bodies of secondary schools: —

* Appendix to Journals of House of Representatives, Sess. 1., 1879, H.-l; and 1880, H.-l.

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