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set my face against it, but the reason I do so is because I know Te Aute can provide for any boy who is really fitted to receive it. 149. Have you lately seat boys from St. Stephen's to Te Aute?— Yes, numbers. Mr. Thornton probably can tell you how many boys have come to Te Aute from St. Stephen's. For some years past 1 should say there has been an average of two or three. 150. On the subject of classification, in your school in Auckland do the teachers endeavour to distinguish between a boy fitted for farming and outdoor life and a boy more fitted for a professional or mercantile life? —In so far as this: that when a boy shows special aptitude and learning he is generally marked out as a boy who should be sent to Te Aute. 151. They take care to do that?— Yes; they pick out the promising boys and send them off to Te Aute to get a secondary education. 152. And, in your opinion, that is advantageous to the race?— Yes. My opinion is that, so long as this teaching is given to these specially clever boys only, it is advantageous to the race. It would be far better to give boys who are not adapted to it technical instruction. 153. Mr. Lee.] I should like to ask whether in your school you have been able to differentiate between the pupils and to classify them as to their work in life, or whether the education in the school is so arranged that it has sides—say, a commercial side, or a scientific side, or any other side? —Well, the idea that we have in St. Stephen's in regard to these boys is this : we are very much more anxious that the boys should go back to their own kaingas and get amongst their own people, and raise their own people, rather than that we should fit them to go and live in towns among pakehas and live pakeha lives. There has been one aspect of thought which has been taken up in late years —that it is advantageous to the Maori to teach him a trade, and to let him live among the pakehas, earning his living by a trade; and in deference to the Government the St. Stephen's School agreed to give facilities for old boys to be apprenticed, and whilst learning their trades to be boarded at the school. Now, frankly, that was against the whole policy that we had put before ourselves, but in deference to pressure from the Government we agreed to give the experiment a trial, and at the present time there are generally five or six old boys residing at the school, and they go every morning into the city to learn their different trades. Personally, I should infinitely prefer to give a boy a training in industrial habits and a certain amount of technical education, and then send him back amongst his own people to live with his own people. But once you apprentice them to a trade you lose them for that. Our aim has been to mould the mind and character of the boys so that they may return home to their kaingas, each one fitted for his life's work. 154. Mr. Hogg.] Have you found that Maori boys and girls, after being well educated in these institutions, are ready to go back to their kaingas and live amongst their own people?— Yes. The great bulk of them do so. With the exception of those who are apprenticed to these trades, 1 should say that practically all of them go back to their own people. I would say this further: the former Inspector of the Education Department in one of his last reports said that whenever he went through a Maori village in the North and found a Maori who was standing out amongst his surroundings, and a wholesome influence in every way, he generally found he was a St. Stephen's boy. 155. Mr. Ngata.] Have you followed the after-history of some of these young men apprenticed to trades? —Yes, I have. Of course, the experiment has not been very long in operation. One thing I fear is that the Maori constitution is not equal to the strain of living in the cities. That is what I pointed out to the Government when they pressed it upon us at first. 156. I believe a very promising young saddler died just the other day? —Yes, one of the finest young fellows we had in our school. 157. Mr. Eliott.] That is not the result of learning a trade? —No; but it is the result of town life. 158. Mr. Ngata.] Your point is that long residence in the town detaches them from their people ?—Not only that; it gets them out of sympathy, and you lose in the first instance the benefit we want these boys to impart to their own people. We are not aiming at the individual benefit of the boys and girls in the school, but the benefit of the race through these boys and girls. 159. Mr. Lee.] How long do they remain at the school?— That depends. The Government scholars are sent for two years, but if satisfactory we invariably keep them for another year or two on our own foundation. The other boys we keep for five or six years. 160. Have you found the health of the boys good?— Yes :so long as they are in the school they are right enough. 161. Mr. Ngata.] In regard to secondary education, have you ever considered the question of sending particularly bright boys to a grammar school instead of to Te Aute? —Yes; and I may say the Government pressed several times to give facilities to specially clever boys to board at St. Stephen's and attend the Auckland Grammar School. I have several instances in my mind at the present time, and I may say I think the experiment was a distinct failure. My experience tells me it is not a desirable thing. 162. Mr. Bird.] How many cases have you had? —I do not like to mention names. There have been four or five, at any rate, but I do not know of any one who has been satisfactory. 163. Mr. Lee.] Have they broken down in health?— No. 164. Mr. Ngata.] Not satisfactory, having in view the policy pursued at St. Stephen's?— Not satisfactory in this respect, and this, I think, was the respect in which it failed: In St. Stephen's, of course, there is a very proper discipline, whioh is, of course, a great deal more strict than the discipline maintained over the average European boy in his own home. Now, the Maori boy boarding at St. Stephen's meets these European boys in his class. They are practically unrestrained by any discipline in their homes. They can do what they like, and can go out as they like, and the boy boarding at St. Stephen's cannot. I have known these boys rather to rebel at the discipline, and at being obliged to conform to the discipline of St. Stephen's in regard to