THE MAORI RACE.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19213, 20 January 1928, Page 8

THE MAORI RACE.

RISK OF EXTINCTION PAST. (PP.ESS ASSOCIATION TBLEOBAJI.) AUCKLAND, January 19. The question of instructing children in Maori schools in health matters was discussed at the conference of native school teachers to-day. Addresses were delivered by Dr. E. P. Ellison, Director of Maori Hygiene, Dr. Ada Paterson, Director of School Hygiene, and Dr. Mildred Staley, representing the Child Welfare Council. Dr. Paterson said the work of the Department was restricted to a certain extent by the size of the available medical staff and it had not been found possible yet to make medical inspections of native school children. Part of the regular routine policy had been to visit the schools where advice on special problems was sought, and an endeavour was made to supply the teachers with literature on health matters.

"it appears to me that any risk of extinction of tbe Maori race is now a thing of the past," said Dr. E. P. Ellison,. Director of Maori Hygiene, referring to the vital statistics quoted in the course of a review of the work of his division. Compared with the people of the Pacific Islands, Dr. Ellison said he found the Maoris difficult to help on account of their strong prejudices fostered by half-educated natives, and in some cases by Europeans. Such prejudice had considerably hampered the measures for the control of typhoid fever by the innoculation method which had otherwise proved highly successful. There had been a marked improvement in recent years in tne hygienio conditions at public native gatherings. There were exceptions, but the Maori generally was not nearly so careless in these matters as formerly. The real meaning of education should bo to teach the children how to live., said Dr. Mildred Staley. In Maori schools, especially, the whole basis of health teaching should be to instil into the children a practical knowledge of how to manage the body, the most wonderful machine ever made. Such teaching was of far greater importance than cramming their minds with history, geography, and arithmetic.