DUSKY SCHOLARS IN SAMOA

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 120, 6 February 1923, Page 7

DUSKY SCHOLARS IN SAMOA

MENTAL ARITHMETIC IS THEIR FORTE

A good deal of attention is paid by the Samoan Administration to the education of the local white and Samoa” children, and reports from the island show that as a result of the efforts of the staff of teachers selected by the New Zealand Government considerable progress in the work continues to he made. Last year the ,public had an. opportunity of seeing ah exhibition at a number of agricultural .shows pi bile very fine work done by the children of the Samoan schools, and the opinions expressed by some of them who saw tho exhibition was very laudatory The jxmmanship of the scholars, with but few exceptions, is markedly good. A New Zealander who visited Samoa a short time ago states that the capacity of the children for mental arithmetic is wonderful. Whole columns of figures given orally by the teachers are mentally calculated with lightning speed and accuracy. At a dinner given in honour of the Hon. E. P. Lee, when, as Minister of Internal Affairs, he visited Samoa, the menu ends contained very artistic paintings, by Samoan school children, of beautiful "flowering shrubs. > The head naster of the Samoa, schools is Mr. D. A. J. Rutherford, who received his early training in Otago. Mr Rutherford, who was formerly headmaster of the Highcliffe School, near Dunedin, was iicently appointed superintendent of the Samoan schools.