on the proposed site; would be conducted without our books, control, inspection, and training; in other words, that the people, though educated, might be badly educated, and would consider that they had been most unjustly excluded by the State from the benefits of the public grant, towards which all the subjects of Her Majesty have contributed, in some shape, according to their means. As the opposition to our system is rapidly diminishing, the difficulty of obtaining neutral sites will gradually lessen, and will, we trust, soon entirely disappear; a result which will have the effect of materially extending the benefits of united education.

13. Annexed is a return of the 224 new schools taken into connexion during the year, of the number in each province, with the nature of the aid granted.

14. We could not adduce a stronger proof that the demand for education, under our system, continues progressively to increase, than the fact of our having received, since the 1st of January of the present year, to the 1st of May, 180 applications for salary and books to existing schools, not previously placed under us, and 37 for grants towards building and furnishing new schools; thus making, in the whole, 217 applications.

III.-15. The total amount of salaries paid to National teachers for the year ending 31st of December, 1847, was £50,391 19s. 5d., being an increase, under this head of ex penditure, as compared with 1846, of £6,214 7s. 11d.

16. We thought it necessary to explain, in our Report of last year, and we now repeat the statement, that "we neither profess, nor are we authorised by the State, to make grants of salaries to teachers, except in aid of local contributions from the Patrons of the schools, and from the parents of the children. The salaries supplied by us are to be regarded as only supplementary to those local payments." The same

observation, regarding local contributions, is applicable to all other grants which we make.

17. We have long felt, however, that the rates of salaries, heretofore paid by us, even with the local payments, were inadequate to secure the permanent services of competent teachers; and we, therefore, suggested that an increase should be made to our grant, in the hope that we should be enabled in the course of 1847, to make a small addition to the salaries of our teachers. Our application was acceded to, although the augmentation to our grant was not so large as we recom mended, or as we required, for various purposes specified in our estimate. In fulfilment of our promise, we increased the salaries of our teachers, during the year, to a limited amount; and a further augmentation will take place, in the current half-year, in the salaries of those who may receive promotion under the new scale of classification, to which we referred in our last Report.

18. The following is the arrangement we have decided upon for the classification of the teachers, under the revised scale, which came into operation on the 1st of April of the present year.

Teachers of National Schools are divided into three classes, to which the following salaries are respectively attached :

6

Mistresses to Teach Needle-work,.

19. Masters of Agricultural Model Schools, with farms of from four to eight acres annexed, who are competent to conduct both the literary and agricultural departments, are to receive £10 per annum, in addition to the salary of the class in which they may be placed.

20. Masters of National Schools, with a small portion of land annexed, consisting of from two to three acres, for the purpose of affording agricultural instruction, will receive £5 per annum, in addition to the salary of their class, provided they are competent to conduct both the literary and agricul

tural departments, and that the Commissioners shall have previously approved of agriculture being taught in the school.

21. A comparison of the above scale with the rates of salaries heretofore paid, of which the minimum was only £8, and the maximum, except in a few cases, £20 per annum, will show that the increase to each class is considerable. The separation of the classes into divisions is intended to produce amongst our teachers increased zeal and diligence in the performance of their duties. The funds required for carrying out this plan will make a large addition to the total expenditure, under the head of salaries to teachers, from the 31st of March, 1848, to the 31st of March, 1849.

IV.-22. We rejoice to find that a strong desire is manifested by the conductors of schools, to improve the minds of the children by the introduction of varied reading on useful and entertaining subjects; and accordingly, until the last year, the receipts for our class books, sold at reduced prices to the National Schools, continued steadily to increase. On the 31st of December, 1846, those receipts amounted to £6,129 16s. 4d. In consequence of the distress existing the following year in every part of the country, the amount received in 1847 was reduced to £4,124 13s. 8d., being a decrease of £2,005 2s. 8d.; but from the commencement of the present year the demand is again on the increase.

23. The falling off in the sale of books and requisites, from this cause, left a great number of our schools very inadequately supplied. We were enabled to make up for the deficiency to a certain extent, by issuing a number of special free grants of books in poor districts, especially in Connaught, where the children were unable to buy them. The estimated value of the books given as free stock, during the year, to 1,718 National Schools, was £5,532 15s. 9d., a sum exceeding that of the year 1846 by £2,389 18s. 11d.

24. We have the gratification to state that the demand for our school-books in England and Scotland is progressively increasing. Many of our Colonies, too, have been supplied during the year with large quantities; and in some of them a system of public instruction for the poor, similar in its general character to that of the National System in Ireland, as being equally adapted to a population of a mixed charac ter as to their religious persuasions, is likely to be established. We have sent books and requisites to Australia,

British Guiana, Canada, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Gibraltar, and Malta. A complete series of our National School-books was also sent to Lord Seaton, the Governor of Corfu; and it is not improbable that they will be translated, at no distant period, into the Greek language, for the use of children attending schools in the Ionian Islands.

V.-25. With a view of encouraging improved habits amongst our teachers, we resolved, last year, to allocate a sum of £10 to each of our thirty-four school districts, and to distribute it in gratuities, varying in amount from £1 to £3, to such of the Masters and Mistresses as most distinguished themselves by the order, neatness, and cleanliness observable in themselves, their pupils, and school-houses.

26. The expense incurred for the year, in carrying out this desirable object, was only £307, divided among 187 teachers; nevertheless, the District Inspectors, upon whose recommendation those gratuities were awarded, have stated in their reports, that the effects produced by this arrangement, have been striking and salutary.

27. This stimulus to improved habits, which has been so beneficial on a small scale, would produce still more remarkable effects upon the order, dress, manners, good conduct, and health of the children, if the experiment, thus commenced by us, were followed up by similar efforts on the part of the landed proprietors of Ireland. Our experience leads us to feel confident, that if the teachers in our schools were encouraged by the gentry to cherish habits of cleanliness and order, a speedy reform in this respect among the peasantry, would be everywhere apparent. This useful object would also be effectually advanced by means of legacies and donations, for the distribution of small prizes through certain baronies, parishes, and towns in Ireland.

VI.-28. Our teachers continue to manifest a strong desire to obtain Lord Morpeth's annual premium, which has been divided as usual among a limited number, selected by our Professors from a list of candidates, recommended by the Inspectors.

VII.-29. We refer, with satisfaction, to the flourishing state of our Model Schools in Marlborough-street; they have fully sustained, during the year, the high character they have

so long enjoyed. The number of pupils on the rolls upon the 30th September, 1847, was, males, 685; females, 430; infants, 316-making a total of 1,431. The daily average attendance has at various times, in the course of last year, considerably exceeded 1,000.

30. It is a remarkable and gratifying circumstance that, notwithstanding the calamities of the past year, the daily average attendance in the Model Schools was never so high during any former year; and that the number of children absent, on account of sickness, was less than it has been in ordinary years.

31. We attribute this comparative exemption from disease, among the children attending our Model Schools, to the sanitary arrangements we have adopted in providing wellventilated school-rooms and spacious play-grounds, as well as to the strict attention paid to personal cleanliness, and to the opportunities afforded, at convenient times, for cheerful recreation.

32. The state of our Model Schools, as regards the literary progress of the children, we consider to be satisfactory.

33. Vocal music, on Hullah's plan, continues to be successfully taught to the pupils of the Model Schools, and to the teachers in training; and is an attractive branch of instruetion; it infuses animation into the ordinary business of the schools, and cannot fail, we think, under judicious management, to produce beneficial results.

34. The practical usefulness of teaching linear drawing from models, is admitted by all who have seen the system in operation. In the great majority of the German schools, and in the principal training establishments in England and Scotland, it is carried on with great success. The best judges on this subject have borne strong testimony to its applicability to many of the most important purposes of daily life, and to the facility with which it enables a skilful teacher to ́impart a knowledge of the art of drawing.

35. Feeling the importance of instructing the children attending our Model Schools, and our teachers in training, in this method of drawing, we have procured a Master of experience, possessing the requisite qualifications for teaching it, simultaneously, on a large scale.

36. Whilst every attention has been paid to the improvement of the children in our Model Schools, in the various branches of their secular education, the paramount duty of giving to them, and the teachers in training, religious instruc.