E.—4

1887. NEW ZEALAND

EDUCATION: INSTITUTION FOR DEAF-MUTES. [In Continuation of E.-4, 1886.]

Presented to both Houses of the General Assembly by Command of His Excellency.

No. 1. Extract from Tenth Annual Bepobt of the Ministke of Education. The number of pupils at the school at Simmer increased during the year from 37 to 41. A slight change has been made in the organisation of the school by the addition of one junior teacher, with the design of setting the Director at liberty to devote more attention to the supervision and training of his subordinates, Tins change appeared to be necessary in order to obtain the best results that can be produced by the admirable method of instruction pursued in the institution —the articulation method. The Director's report is printed as a separate paper. The expenditure for 1886 was ,£3,514 12s. Bd., and the recoveries in the shape of payments made by parents amounted to .4*385 15s. lOd. The expenditure is accounted for as follows: Salaries, £1,065 13s. Bd.; board of pupils, £1,639 14s. 5d.; rent, .€4Ol ss. ; travelling, £172 12s. lOd.; contingencies, £235 6s. 9d.

No. 2. Sic, — Director's Bepobt. I have the honour to submit to the department my seventh report of the institution. The year has been characterized by continued individual and concerted action on the part of the teachers to make the instruction and training of the pupils telling and satisfactory. And the result, as evinced by the behaviour and intelligence of the pupils, may be considered good in nearly all cases, fair only in a few, and excellent in some. In the case of the two or three children in the institution whose mental capacity is much below the average it is impossible to get more than a fair result, but the training should, for all that, not be regarded as of little value to them, for the personal and. careful attention which they, with the rest, daily receive has a most humanising effect upon their whole being. Appropriate training sets in vibration the mechanism of such children's torpid minds, strengthens and directs their will, and assuredly saves them from a life-long condition of utter ignorance and melancholy stupor. But for such a process of mental exercise their being trained to perform any kind of bodily labour would be much more difficult, if not altogether hopeless. The teaching of very slow children, in a young institution like ours, has other advantages not to be forgotten. It involves increased care and self-control on the part of young teachers. It affords them special opportunities to test their own teaching-powers, and makes them observant as to individual peculiarities. By having dull mutes in a class the master is forced to try various ways of improving them, and on some occasions, and with distinct advantage to himself, discovers that want of success may be as much the result of his own ignorance or haste as of the tardy and peculiar nature of the child's intellect. The number of scholars, being forty-three, remains the same as it was last year. Three left, and three fresh ones entered, one of the latter being an ex-pupil teacher from the North Island, who is admitted for the purpose of learning lip-reading. It may deserve a passing notice that this is the fifth case of deafness resulting from illness between the ages of five and sixteen that we have been called upon to train in the art of reading from the lips what others are saying. Can it be that our changeable climate is somewhat severe on the organ of hearing? I, for one, am under this impression, and my belief now is even stronger than it was in 1880, when I first referred to it in my report of the opening of the school. Eecent experience of another kind deserves to bo mentioned. When the pupils had to return for this year's study one of the parents desired to keep her daughter back, in obedience to an expressed fancy of the child that she wished to learn dressmaking. Another, the mother of a large family, wished to do likewise, on the plea of having found her daughter " so useful and thoughtful