The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1897. NATIVE EDUCATION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 225, 28 September 1897, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1897. NATIVE EDUCATION.

For tho cause that lacks assistance, For the ■wrong that needs resistance, For the Mwo in the distance, And tho good that m can do.

In . our Parliamentary notes last evening we published a few facts relative to the condition of Maori education in the colony culled from the Native Schools report which has just been laid en the table of the House. The report takes a hopeful view of what is being accomplished for the native race by means of education, •and the figures which our Parliamentary correspondent quotes seem to justify the conclusion that pur efforts in this direction have not been altogether thrown away. The number of pupils attending native schools increased during 189G, while there is a demand for new schools in several districts, and the natives are said to be showing a g-rowing interest in the education of their children. All this is gratifying in its way. but it affords little or no index to the degree of success the school system has achieved as an educating influence among the Maoris. No one with anything but the crudest conception of what education implies would pretend for a moment that the ultimate test of free and compulsory tuition among us Europeans was the munber of children on the roll. It is by the afterlife of the pupil that we estimate the real value of his early training. And this is precisely how we must, estimate the success of the native schools. We are afraid that the interest which the natives are said to feel in the education of their children in most cases springs from no higher desire than the wish that the youngsters should ■be able to speak the 'prevalent language of the country and get a smattering of European ways and manners. And with remarkably few ex ceptions the scholars themselves, when, they are old enough to take much thought about the. matter, regard education in the same light. Their ambition is satisfied if their learning enables them to outshine and overreach their fellows by the use of the cunning of the pakeha.

The Native Schools.report enumeratessevenil instances of native pupils who' have to all appearances benefited by their school training. Fourteen Maori boys have been apprenticed to trades, one Maori girl is at a high school with a scholarship, and 2 native yotmg- men are also the holders of scholarships which enable them to study at the University Colleges of Auckland and Cbristclmrch. But these, as we have hinted, are the exceptions. The great bulk of the boys and g'his who attend our native schools go back to their people and resume their old life. And sad to re-

late in most instances they carry with them rather a lowering than an elevating influence. For they have rendered themselves unfit to pursue contentedly the vocations of their neighbours, and they have not learned to imitate th"c industry and the enterprise of their pakeha friends. Hard work.never verj- much appreciated by the Maori, seemingly becomes distasteful to the native lad after he has been through the school, and he degenerates into a pert loafer about the. pa. Even in the case of pupils who have had the advantage of the best native instruction available the results are disappointing.

One has only to read some of the papers and addresses read before the first conference of Te Aute Students' Association to understand in how

little our best efforts to educate the Maoris have as yet resulted. These papers are for the most part by native gentlemen,so that the statements they contain with regard to the effect of education on the Maori race should carry with them a certain authority that does not usually attach to European criticisms on the same subject. The second assistant master of Te Aute College admits with deep regret that " some 90 per cent, of those who leave the instituton return to their homes only to become -a curse to their people, and make worse citizens than those who remained at home in their ignorance. I do not know," he adds, "of many boys in my district who may be called successes ; they have not found constant employment, they have not done well in what work they have undertaken, and many of them have gone to the bad." Another paper read at the same conference, while contending that education has been a blessing to the Maoris, admits that all the care and training bestowed on native children is thrown away,and that in a large number of cases their second state is worse than their first.

So much for the past and negative results of our efforts to educate the natives. The picture, it must be confessed, is not a very inspiriting one, but it is not altogether so dark as it looks at first sight. We must never forget thestrength of the native habits, modes of thought, traditions, and influences with which we have to contend. Bearing these in mind and the short period which has elapsed since a regular system of education among the Maoris was inaugurated, the results obtained are surprising and creditable to both the Maoris and their teachers. It was only in 1872 that the final Act providing for the general tuition of English in native schools was passed. That is a quarter of a century ago, and to-day it is estimated that "ninety per cent, of the adult native popiilation, including the younger natives over sixteen years of age, can either read or write." Mr Pope, the Inspector of Native Schools, notes a further benefit that has accrued to the natives from the education system. "The general aspect of education as taught in the schools," he remarked in his report for 1895, "has been to familiarise the natives with the better class of European ideas and customs."

This remark seems somewhat at variance with the evidence we quoted above of a certain deterioration in the educated Maori. But Mr Pope would probably explain that while it is undeniable that the young Maori too often goes back to his tribe and becomes a more undesirable member of it than it he had never gone to school, his deterioration is not the result of his education but of the evil influences among which he is cast; and that the fault of the system is not that it trains the pupil so far, but that it does not train him far enough. The eases are altogether different with the European and the Maori child. The former, when he quits school, finds himself in no new social atmosphere. All the influences around him tend in much the some direction as those he was subject to in school. The ideas he imbibes, the. experiences he passes through, the customs he is required to observe are precisely those of the society he was born into and has lived in. But the poor Maori lad, after his brief term at the public school where he has become Europeanised, to some extent, returns to all the traditions of semi-savagery. He finds his nearest relatives have little or no sympathy with him. He is left to himself and is lonely. He seeks companionship, old hereditary instincts awaken, and he finds himself drifting- back into the old ways almost in spite of himself ; and now he approaches them, not in the old spirit of belief, but rather in an attitude of contempt and half-dislike.

The poor fellow has not a chance. That this represents pretty nearly the actual state of affairs is admitted

on all hands. It is therefore obvious that the remedy lies in the separation of the scholars from the influences of their tribal life. In the ease of a

certain number of those who can be sent to colieg-ps such a plan is feasible though even there it has not been a success ; but in the case of the mass of native children attending- the native schools it is clearly out of the question. And it is this very fact that leads us to have misgivings as to the very sanguine view that is often taken; of the educative influence 'of our: native school system on the Maori j people as a whole. i