HIGHER EDUCATION OF THE MAORI.

Evening Post, Volume LVII, Issue 22, 27 January 1899, Page 4

HIGHER EDUCATION OF THE MAORI.

The welfare of the Maori race must always have a strong interest for thoughtful colonists. Besides the sentimental associations that must attach to the remnants of this noble race — the original occupiers of the land we are rapidly Europeanising — there is the great and urgent practical problem of the future development of some forty thousand of our fellow beings who, though they differ from us in language, in customs, and in civilisation, yet share our common humanity and to a certain extent our common political institutions. Any movement among the Maoris that has for its aim the improvement of the race must command our, warmest sympathies. The best work we can do for our native brothers and sisters is to encourage every effort they make to reach a higher and broader life. One of the best of their recent efforts is the work being done by the Te Aute College Students' Association. The third annual Conference of the Association was recently held at Tauinata-o-Mihi, Tuparoa, on the East Coast, And among the Ngatiporou tribe.

This temporary transplanting of Te Aute College to the centre of actual Maori life was the result of a special invitation signed by some seventy Ngatiporou chiefs "The ordinary school routine and discipline," says a northern contemporary, "were observed as far as they could be under the altered conditions, the sittings of tho Conference taking the ordinary school hours. Whether in the meeting house, in the church, in the kitchen, or by the woodyard, on the 'marae' where a little gardening and some tidying-up was required, or out in the open where sports and military drill might be indulged in, the visiting students past and present had each a lesson to teach their hosts, and great was the admiration expressed by all, and warm the appreciation of the work the Association had commenced. The experiment was an undoubted success, and will bear repetition in other Maori centres." Te Aute, as is probably well known, is a college in the Hawkes Bay district at which young Maoris are educated up to a high standard. Many of these students are earnestly anxious to benefit their race, and sincerely desirous of arresting the de cline which seems to have overtaken it. It was a de.gidedjy wise move to hold tho annual Conference in a place where a largr number of natives could attend. Thir would serve- to publish -among the Maoris the nature of the work being done at To Aute, and also perhaps to turn their at tention towards tire valuable effects of edu | cation. The detailed report of the pro ceedings has not yet been issued, but is, we understand, soon to appear. A fair estimate of the work done may, however, be gathered from the accounts published in the Northern 'newspapers. A satisfac tory feature of the Conference appears tr be that no, .attempt was made to disguise the unsatisfactory social conditions that prevail among ttie Maoris. Some of the mostr glaring evils, such as drink and immorality, were ruthlessly exposed, and many educated natives, like Mr. Ngata, used every endeavour to impress apor their fellow Maoris the need of reform if the race is to grow and prosper. The Conference came to the conclusion that th< main cause of the decline of the Maori people was ignorance in various forms. The remedy proposed was more extensive and intelligent education, including compulsory school attendance, greater facilities for entering the university colleges, and the establishment of a technical school. There were discussions, also, or the vicious practices of Maori tohungas, and speaker after speaker deplored the havoc worked by drink. As a people we have neglected the claims of the Maoris tc share in the best, our civilisation can give, and in spite of our native schools and our missionaries much still remains for us to do, especially in the field of education, if we would save the race we have J'spossessed from perishing utterly. The reassuring words of the Rev. A. O. William? at the Conference should appeal to Euro peans as well as Maoris — "The dark clouds overshadowing the Maori people are not so black but that a ray of rope may be seen through them, and a glimpse of better things."