E.—4

1908. NEW ZEALAND.

EDUCATION: SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF. [In continuation of E.-4, 1907.]

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

No. 1. Extract from the Thirty-first Annual Report of the Minister of Education. School for the Deaf. The school reopened with 71 pupils on the roll —36 boys and 35 girls. During the year 4 boys and 1 girl were admitted and 1 girl left the school, thus the number belonging at the close of the year 1907 was 75—40 boys and 35 girls. The increase in the population of the Dominion, the enactment making the education of deaf children compulsory, and the fact that it is now the practice to admit pupils at an earlier age than formerly, must all have the effect of adding to the number of children to be provided for, and the question of making additions to the residential accommodation at Sumner is now under consideration. The expenditure on the institution for the year 1907 was : Salaries of Director and teachers, £1,589 13s. 3d.; Matron and servants, £859 65.; housekeeping, £957 7s. lOd.; travellingexpenses (including transit of pupils), £161 6s. Id.; school material, £6 16s. Bd. ; clothing, £26 16s. 3d.; medical attendance and medicines, £29 lis. Bd. ; water-supply, £114 55.; board-ing-out of pupils, £126 18s. lid.; general maintenance of buildings, and furniture, £259 os. lid.; laying-out of grounds, erection of dairy and fowlhouses, £788 2s. lOd.; sundries, £162 6s. 2d.: total expenditure, £5,111 lis. 7d. Deducting parents' contributions, £538 4s. 4d., the net expenditure was £4,573 7s. 3d.

No. 2. Report of the Director. Sir,— School for the Deaf, Sumner, 24th April, 1908. I have the honour to lay before you my report for the year 1907. After the summer holidays sixty of the preceding year's pupils—thirty of each sex—returned to the school, and eleven new pupils —of whom six were boys and five were girls—were admitted, making a total of seventy-one at the commencement of the school year. Some weeks later, by the admission of four boys and one girl, the number on the roll was raised to seventy-six. In May one of the older girls was removed, her parents wishing her to take advantage of an opportunity open to her of learning dressmaking in her native town. There were no further changes until the end of the year, when the number on the roll was seventy-five, including forty boys and thirty-five girls. Three boys and two girls were boarded out, one boy and one girl lived with friends, and the other sixty-eight children resided at the school. Of the new pupils, two were of special interest. One was a lad of fourteen, who had lost his hearing five years previously owing to an attack of meningitis. It cannot be too often repeated that at such an age, if the art of lip-reading be not acquired, the loss of hearing is quickly