B.—lβ

12

District High Schools.

These figures are for the period between one examination and another, not for the school year ending 31st December. Catholic Schools. —The six Catholic schools in the district were examined as usual. The statement below shows the number of pupils attending there, and the average ages of the different standards :—

Efficiency of Schools. —The last heading of the examination report is entitled " Efficiency." The mark given sums up the Inspectors' judgment of the school as a whole. It is a brief estimate of the manner in which the school is fulfilling its purpose of training those who enter it in habits of industry and obedience, and of giving them power to apply the facts and information gleaned from books, from nature, or from the teacher. The mark is given by comparison with the Inspectors' ideal of what the school should be, and also by a comparison with the standard actually attained in the best schools. The points entering into this judgment may be put in the form of these questions : Are the pupils earnest and diligent in their work ? Do they readily attack the problems set before them ? Do they perform their tasks with alacrity ? Is their eye keen and eager ? Is their ear always open ? Are their senses fully aroused in the presence of new facts ? Is there evidence of thought in the answers given ? Is the knowledge accurate within the range it has been imparted 1 Are the outdoor school recreations fully supervised and utilised ? Is the school kept clean ? Is the whole atmosphere of the place conducive to the development of industry, of thoughtfulness, of earnestness, and of good taste ? These and many more points weigh with the Inspector when he is giving his judgment. He takes account also of the circumstances of the school and the difficulties of the district. It will thus be seen that " efficiency " in the sense in which it is now used means something more than a summary of the results gained by the application of certain tests. It is this partly, for tests of some kind must always be given, but it is much more. It is an estimate of the school as a means of stimulating and arousing mental effort, of enlarging knowledge, of increasing power to think and to reason accurately. Something like this is what the Inspector has in his mind. The ideal as we have stated it above serves to convey at least this : that when we are speaking of the efficiency of a school something far greater, far nobler, far higher is meant than its power to equip pupils for examination of the memory order. Under this kind of classification it is quite possible, if our judgment is discerning, for a school which " crams well "to take rank as " unsatisfactory." The time is surely coming when schools which cram, even if they cram ever so wisely, will all rank as such. From a succeeding paragraph it will be seen that we have made a strenuous effort to break away from old and stereotyped methods of examination, with the sole purpose in view of eliminating stereotyped, obsolete, and irrational methods of teaching. For efficiency the schools are classified as follows : Very good, three schools ; good, sixty schools ; very fair or satisfactory, eighty-four schools; fair, twenty-one schools; weak or inferior, fourteen schools. That is, of a total of 182 schools examined (the six Catholic schools are included here) 147

With refe: Town Si renoe to ihools. Number oi ! Pupils -ere spei who, in 1905, iding Sohool. Average Roll. Admitted to Secondary Department. Admitted from Country Schools. Number passed Standard VI, 1904. First Year. Second Year. Third Year. More than Third Year. lltham ... fawera... Vanganui larton ... 'eilding 26 53 52 36 33 16 40 59 18 28 8 20 43 11 12 2 20 .-7 I 9 13 10 40 50 20 25 10 14 10 16 5 8 5 3 4 1 1 1 4 3 Total, average roll ... 200 161 94 51 145 55 21

Classes. NU Roi e h° n Average Age. Standard VII „ VI ■ V IV ;, Ill „ II „ I Preparatory 14 45 57 99 98 89 57 244 Yrs. mos. 15 1 13 11 12 11 12 2 10 11 9 10 8 10 6 6 Total 703