Te Wai Pounamu Maori Girls’ College has served N.Z. for sixty years

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32430, 17 October 1970, Page 11

Te Wai Pounamu Maori Girls’ College has served N.Z. for sixty years

(By

R. R. BEAUCHAMP)

Beside the roaring torrent of traffic that runs day and night between Christchurch and the port of Lyttelton there is a quiet backwater. Its name is Te Wai Pounamu, the Waters of Greenstone, and it is the college for Maori girls that has served our two New Zealand races for 60 years.

When you turn out of the traffic you are in another world: a quiet world of spacious lawns and gardens, walnut trees and fruit trees. Ahead of you is the chapel, built in 1926 on the pattern of the traditional Maori meeting-house, the whare runanga. Beyond it is the main college building, nearly 100 years old; once the home of the Marsh family who planted the trees and the orchard and kept a flock of emus in an enclosure beside the house. This is the setting of Te Wai Pounamu Maori Girls’ College. In term time it bubbles with light and laughter and suffers the joys and sorrows inherent in a population of 40 or so lively teen-agers. When the holidays come you can almost see it heave a sigh of relief and settle down to a little peace and quiet thinking perhaps of the old days when the problems of the Marsh family and flock of emus were all it had to worry about. Te Wai Pounamu was the love child of the Rev. Charles Fraer. He had an enormous interest in people, particularly those who needed an extra hand along the road. Tuahiwi, with its large Maori population, was in his parish. He was a product of the boarding school and university classical education. His energy came to be directed towards the question of the education of Maori girls. Coming mainly from homes where families were large and incomes small, they made their way to standard six in the local school, at the age of 12 or 13 were reabsorbed into the domestic circle to emerge all too soon and start a family of their own. Charles Freer wanted to break this circle and give at least some girls the chance of higher education with its opportunities to enter the professions. He saw that his school must be a boarding school and the old vicarage at Ohoka was empty and waiting. The first pupils On March, 4,1909, the college was opened with a roll of eight girls, from the kaingas of Waikouwaiti, Moeraki, Temuka, Tuahiwi, Taumutu and one from the Chatham Islands. This was no charitable enterprise. Fees to cover the cost of maintenance were fixed and parents paid loyally. Help in kind came from neighbours and friends: a cow in calf, a load of firewood, a case of swan’s eggs from the Chathams. With the latter came a note saying that if Emmie (Dix) wanted to come home for the holidays they could send her if there was any transport available. The birth of the college was not an easy one. The first principal’s health could not stand the strain: though there is a picture of the first eight girls—black skirts to the ground, high collars up to their chins, leg-of-mutton sleeves: all looking as though butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. She was succeeded by a Miss G, “a lady just arrived from England.” She seems to have found the work not quite what she was accustomed to, for 1910 opened with a roll of four and a Miss Holland, M.A., in charge. By the end,of that year the roll was up to 14. In 1911 Miss Winifred Opie came to Te Wai Pounamu and was to guide it through 12 happy and formative years. Both Winifred Opie’s parents taught in Canterbury schools. She took her M.A. in Christchurch and taught for a while at the little native

school in Pelorus Sound before coming to Te Wai Pounamu. She started at £6O a year and her keep; when she left to get married 12 years alter she was being paid £65. Most of her monthly reports have survived and from these and from the memories of the pupils of that day, many happily still with us, a picture of life at Ohoka emerges. It was a tightly knit community where the household arts, including milking cows and butter making, predominated. Girls who had the ability to go beyond the range of the one teacher went daily by train to Christchurch Technical College. Old girls were welcomed back on the staff. The numbers grew and inspectors wrote glowing reports of this odd little school in the middle of the Rangiora dairying country. By 1913 the roll was up to 24 and extra sleeping and schooling room was tacked on to the old vicarage. The 1914-18 war took Charles Freer overseas as a chaplain and without his enthusiasm and guiding hand the work slowed down. But with peace and the triumphant return of the Maori troops the need for this kind of education was more widely accepted. Money was raised to buy a property in Ferry Road and the College moved to its present site in 1922. High reputation From 1924 to 1940 the Anglican sisterhood took over the staffing of the College. During these years its character changed. The provision of secondary education for Maori girls had been the founder’s intention, but the success of the school and the high reputation of its students made parents want to send all their daughters—from five years upwards. The register abounds with the well known Ngahitahu family names: Taiaroa, Parata, Nihoniho, Tikao and many others. I do not think the good sisters had the heart to turn any away and in these years the school took on more of a primary than a secondary role. The Chapel of St Francis was built in 1926 thanks to a generous and anonymous gift. Its traditional carving and kowhaiwhai decoration make it a place of unique beauty in Christchurch. Many fine examples of Maori art have been added from time to time. The hard times of the 1929 depression hit the Maori family even harder than it hit most families. The college has always been dependent on fees paid by parents, and there just wasn’t the money. In 1930 the roll was down to nine. Mr Freer died in 1932. A tribute to him is carved into the wall of the chapel porch. Te Wai Pounamu survived this loss and survived the depression. By 1937 numbers were back to 24, only to fall again to 10 in 1941 when the war claimed so many whose work, interest and money kept the school going. Happy years But 1941 was also memorable for the beginning of better things. In that year Mrs Daniels became principal. As Miss Hilda- Harding she had taught at the school for some years and inspectors’ reports tell of both her skills as a teacher and her ability to understand and cope with the problems of her girls. For the next 20 years she was to guide the school through its most formative and successful years. Then in 1941 Miss Kia Rewai organised the Old Girls’ Association which

linked the past and the present and helped provide for the future as their own families came to school age. The association too was most generous in raising funds and doing voluntary work. Te Wai Pounamu has always had a close link with the people of the Chatham Islands. It often gave their older girls the only chance of secondary education and a wider breath of mainland air. Kia had Come from the Chathams in 1920 as a little girl of nine. She was decorated for her services overseas in the Second World War. As founder and organiser of the old girls’ association and as a member of the college council, she worked tirelessly for the good of the school. The third bright star to rise in this year was Mr John Stewart, a Christchurch business man. As bursar, as secretary to the council and as a member and .finally chairman, he gave of his time and talents unsparingly. Even before the war was over and the men of the Maori Battalion came home, the college began to stir and show what it really could do. Buildings were improved and enlarged to take a roll of 40, which was always maintained. Academic successes The results in terms of education and influence on both the European and Maori communities were quite outstanding. In the 15 years from 1945 to 1960 the School Certificate passes were always over 60 per cent, while the national average was 50-55 per cent and the Maori average 2025 per cent. In 1957 out of 13 who sat the examination, 12 passed: and all entered either nursing or teaching professions. These figures are probably unequalled throughout the country. With this academic excellence the reputation of the Te Wai Pounamu girls stood equally, high in other fields. In sport, in singing, in the practice of maoritanga they have more than held their own. In 1960 Mrs Daniels retired after 30 years of devoted service. It had been obvious for some time that the growth of specialisation and the increasing variety of courses made the running of

a small secondary school more and more difficult. From 1965 the girls of Te Wai- Pounamu have gone to the Avonside Girls’ High School. With the close cooperation of the Board of Governors and the headmistress this has worked well. The ideal of a separate college where the Maori predominates is now closely allied to a big modem comprehensive school where the ways and skills of the modem world are taught. In the 60 years of its exisA group of girls who were about to leave the college,

fence 625 girls have passed through the college. It T is essentially a Christian foundation. It was conceived within the body of the Anglican church and has been its child ever since, though girls of any or no denomination are welcomed. It is no charitable organisation but a true partnership with the Maori people. The fees paid by parents amounted to about 30 per cent in the early days and up to 80 per cent in the 1940 s of the operating expenses. The balance, and all money required for development, has come from trusts, from scholarships and from private subscriptions. Looking back today over the first 60 years of this South Island Maori Girls’ College one realises both how valuable, in terms of human happiness, this kind of work can be and also how fragile it is; how small is the margin between success and failure. The impact of two world wars and of the great depression brought the work almost to a standstill. Each time' the labours of dedicated teachers and administrators saved the day. Now, in 1970, Te Wai Pounamu faces another challenge to its existence. With the Maori population of the South Island growing rapidly by birth and by immigration the need for this kind of effort is still very much with us. What has evolved at Te Wai Pounamu is neither segregation nor integration. Educationally the Maori has got to catch up with the rest. The gardener who wants to speed up plants that have been checked by tough conditions puts them in a frame or hothouse. The college is such a hothouse. The atmosphere may seem artificial in these days of levelling out; but we see it as a place where these young and tender plants can

most easily develop those qualities that so adorn the Polynesian people. At the same time they are being fitted to hold their own in the European culture which, for better dr for worse, we have adopted in this country. Today Te Wai Pounamu needs the support of the Maori people. It needs money beyond that which parents can pay. But, above all, it needs women and men who are prepared to devote their time and talents to it [Anyone interested in helping this work, either personally or financially, can join the Friends of Te Wai Pounamu. The secretary, R. R. Beauchamp, 305 Kennedy’s Bush Road, Christchurch, 3, will be glad to enrol new friends and give any further information.] ATA TUUTA and Clever Mary, Ferry Road, about 1926.