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School-books. Education Department, Wellington, 4th July, 1899. The question of uniformity of school-books has been brought under the attention of the Minister of Education. The Minister deems it unlikely that the want of uniformity in school books would often create serious inconvenience through removal of children from one education district to another ; on the other hand, he thinks that hardship might frequently be caused thereby through the removal of pupils from one school to another within the same education district; and he wishes to point out that this matter would be set right if every Education Board would see that the chief books, especially the Readers, were the same in all schools under its jurisdiction. Under the regulations just issued the number of series of Readers authorised has been reduced from ten to six, but the Minister considers that there is still ample choice to enable Boards to suit the wants of their respective districts; and he desires me to call the attention of the Boards to the obligation imposed by the regulations of confining their choice of books to those contained in the list of authorised school-books. I might suggest that the hardship that sometimes ensues when pupils are moved from one education district to another would largely disappear if Boards would adopt some such plan as that of buying from pupils second-hand books in good condition, the books so bought being either sold again or kept to be used as supplementary Eeaders when the Eeaders in use were changed. Geokge Hogben, Secretary for Education. The Secretary to the Education Board.

By Authority: John Mackay, Government Printer, Wellington.—l9oo

16— E. 1.