E.—2.

12

Board of School-children.—ln aid of the board of any child who, on account of distance or the absence of roads, has to live away from home in order to attend a public school, an allowance of 2s. 6d. per week is similarly made. In 1911 £354 was •paid for the board of school-children, as against £269 in 1910. '- - Free Class-boohs. The system of free class-books has now been in operation for four years. The preparatory classes and Standards I and II were supplied during 1909, Standard 111 during 1910, Standard IV during 1911, and last session a sum was included in the vote for elementary education to defray the cost of books to be supplied to Standards V and VI, and also to replace books in all standards as they are worn out. In deference to representations that some teachers considered it desirable that pupils should have a reading-book for home preparation, Boards were given the option of (1) supplying the miscellaneous readers free to pupils, or (2) requiring the pupils to provide the miscellaneous readers (except in necessitous cases or in cases where a newly entered pupil has already purchased a different miscellaneous reader), and under certain conditions supplying in lieu thereof paper to be used in school instead of slates. The conditions of the grants provide also that after provision has been made for the supply of specified class-books, the balance of the grant may be spent on approved books for libraries suitable for class reading or for individual reading in sshool or at home. As the grants are on a liberal scale Boards should be able to provide schools with suitable class or school libraries, which should foster in the pupils a desire for reading. The " School Journal " and other Publications, Charts, c&c. The School Journal has now completed its fifth year of issue, the first number being published in May, 1907. It is published in three parts—viz., Part I (sixteen pages) for Classes I and II; Part II (sixteen pages) for Classes 111 and IV ; and Part 111 (thirty-two pages) for Classes V and VI. There are no issues for the months of December and January, but the November number is enlarged to provide readingmatter until the schools close, about the middle of December. Public schools, Native schools, special schools (such as industrial schools), and certain other institutions more or less under departmental control or supervision are supplied free with a number of copies sufficient to provide each pupil in the standard classes with a copy of the appropriate part. An increasing number of private schools purchase copies at the rate of |d. per copy for Part I, and Id. per copy for each of Parts II and 111. While the School Journal aims primarily at being instructive rather than recreative, there is ample evidence that each monthly number is eagerly looked for and welcomed by the children, and that its influence tends to the very desirable end of fostering the habit and love of reading not in the school only, but also in the home. It is gratifying to note also that the Journal is meeting with appreciation beyond New Zealand, and particularly in Canada, where Earl Grey, late GovernorGeneral, has succeeded in inducing the educational authorities of some of the provinces to undertake the publication of school-papers similar to the New Zealand School Journal. In addition to containing well-defined series of articles on geography, history, nature-knowledge, &c, the Journal gives due attention to current topics of more than local importance, to striking events in current history, to important developments in modern discovery and invention, as well as to the recurrent topics of Arbor Day, Empire Day, &c. The Journal is regularly illustrated; but, in addition to the illustrations appearing in its pages, pictures and prints illustrating geography, history, and naturestudy are being issued separately on cards as aids to oral instruction on modern lines in these subjects. Up to the present time the following series have appealed : Twenty-four pictures illustrating great British battles ; forty illustrations of New Zealand flora ; twenty-four of New Zealand geography ; eight dealing with the lives of Captain Cook and Lord Nelson ; twenty-eight of the geography of the British Isles ; twenty illustrating life on H.M.S. " New Zealand " ; twenty-four dealing geographically, historically, and ethnologically with South Africa ; seventy-