ildren. In 1911, it was provided for 180,000
children in 3,066 schools, and during the same time bilingual
instruction has been introduced into some 200 schools.

In spite of what has been, and is being done, further reforms in primary
education are still unquestionably required, and can, moreover, be
easily effected without any of the convulsions of a constitutional
revolution. The salaries of principals and assistants, especially in
large and important schools, ought to be increased. In particular, the
Pensions Act needs modification, for, under the present Act, teachers
who retire before reaching the age qualifying for a pension receive
gratuities considerably less than the Old Age Pensions. Even those who
qualify for pensions are very shabbily treated if they retire before
sixty years of age. Building grants also should be increased, so that
the constant applications for the rebuilding of bad premises could be
met.[91] The teaching of infants, greatly improved by the institution of
junior assistant mistresses by Mr. Walter Long during his Chief
Secretaryship, can be still further improved and brought up to the
English standard; and the efficiency of primary education generally can
be promoted in the direction of sympathetic appreciation of the real
needs of the children, regarded from the point of view of thinking human
beings, and not merely as recording machines.

The following desirable improvements may also be mentioned:--

(_a_) Encouragement of the teaching of gardening in connection with
country schools for boys, at a cost of about L2000 a year.

(_b_) Provision for instruction in wood-work for pupils of urban
districts, at central classes in technical schools, at a cost of
about L4000 a year.

(_c_) The provision of medical inspection and the treatment of
school children, which would cost about L30,000 a year, and dental
inspection and clinics, which would cost another L50,000. This
expense should be defrayed largely out of the local rates, one
third, say L25,000, to come out of the estimates. There would also
be the cost of supervision, etc., by the Education Department,
amounting to about L5000 a year. Committees, as for school
attendance, composed partly of representatives of school managers
and partly of local authorities, could be formed for
administration.

(_d_) A considerable impetus might be given to Evening