STATE AIDED MORMON SCHOOLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 61, 12 March 1921, Page 14

STATE AIDED MORMON SCHOOLS.

(To the BditOi'.) Sir, —Some two years ago the residents of Awarua, which is situated some 14 miles south of Kaikohe, in the Bay of Islands district, wrote to the Education Department giving ,i list of gome 3G pakeha and native children of school age for whom no school existed, and requested that a school be erected. A site was found, and in reply to further urgent representations a reply was received from the department in which the writer stated (inter alia) : "My heart bleeds I for the 36 children and the neglect under j which they suffer," and asked if there was I any accommodation to be had for a teacher or teacher's residence. An answer was sent to the department stat- ! ing that no accommodation was avail- ! able, but that a building used by the natives as a Mormon Church might suit for a temporary school. The department then wrote and asked for particulars of this building, and eventually promised to forward books, desks ami school and to allow Mr. Cole, a local Mormon elder, to take charge gratuitously of the juvenile native pupils. Thus the root of Mormon denominationalism gets its first hold. Settlers received the assurance of tUe director of education that steps would be taken to erect a government school early last summer, but nothing whatever hae been done, and our district school remains a Mormon institution, State aided by grants of books, furniture and school requisites, and appears likely to continue so, in spite of a building grant appearing on last year's Estimates. Such shows a phase of education in the neglected North, and dubious members of the House can verify same by calling for and reading all correspondence in the matter.—l am, etc., BACKBLOCKER.