SPECIAL TELEGRAM NOTES FROM AUCKLAND.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 25, 30 January 1908, Page 3

SPECIAL TELEGRAM NOTES FROM AUCKLAND.

. 'AN UNFOUNPED COMPLAINT. [By T?usgeaph.— Special, to The Pqst.J > -AUCKLAND, This Day The Chief Postmaster at Auckland (Mr. Holdsworth), interviewed in regard to the irregular -arrivals of the Suez mail, states that the mail is due to arrive at Sydney on Tuesdays and Thufs'days in alternate weeks. The mail due on Tuesdays had, he said, always caught the Wednesday boat for Auckland, and those due on ' Thursday had almost invariably, by arriving' a day in advance of the schedule time, also' caught 'the boat on "Wednesday, ( , and thus', "reached Auckland on Sunday,' whereas according to the time-table jit was not actually, due at Wellington, till the following Wednesday', and was thus . not due to reaqh Auckland till Friday. The public, with one or two exceptions, had tnus been on alternate weeks receiving tbo mail ahead of the due 'date. TEACHING THE YOUNG MAORI. The Herald, in an article on the system! of teaching adopted in the 'native schools, says: — "The next generation will- show the* advantage of educating the present generation of Maoris. After leaving school the Maori boys or girls find ths way besot "with great difficulty .> The walk.> in life open to them are very limited, for again the old prejudices against the Maori unconsciously coma in. Undoubtedly the thing that will 4° t" 6 greatest ' good in this direction is the opening. up of tho'native lands, ar»d the establishing of' a 1 purely agricultural colldge for Maoris.' 1 'It is want of Opportunity,' says the department, 'far more than' want of adaptability or> ability.' Last year there were more native children attending native schools than ever before, and an every hand the' Maoris are recognising and appreciating more' and more the benefits of education. Mnori committees are very enthusiastic ; sometimes they make such rules as 'Only Eng. lisb to be spoken in the playground ' There is no capitation paid, and the Maoris themselves provide firewood, and the children undertake the school cleaning. At .'some schools the youngsters take keen pride in keeping the schools clean. One school 'in use for twenty years has not a mark or stain on either the desks ,or floors, and at .another the youngsters not only, scrub the inside of the building, but the outside as wdl. The Chief Justice (Sir, Robert Stout) inspected a native school at Rotorua, and stated that he had never seen a school so clean. Of course there are exceptions, but the depVrtment states that generally, the' schools are kept in a most clean and sanitary state."