EDUCATION FRILLS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 95, 19 October 1931, Page 9

EDUCATION FRILLS

NOT FOR THE MAORI

SIMPLE TEACHING BETTER

SPEECH BY SIR A. T. NGATA

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, 181.li October

"It is a mistake to give the Maoris grammar school training, and to stuff them with all the frills of modern education," declared Sir Apirana Ngata, Minister of Native Affairs, at the. opening of the- new buildings of St. Stephen's School for Maori boys at Bombay. "What the Maori boy aud girl want is not. the teaching of the educational faddists, of whom there are far too many, but an education of perfect simplicity." The greatest good of education was to provide people with an intelligent means of communicating with each other, whether in speech or in writing, said Sir Apirana. The Maori, and for that uißtter the Samoan and people of other Polynesian races, needed a working knowledge of the English language, and he totally disagreed with those teachers who cut English out of the curriculum in sterne of the island schools and taught in the Native language. ■ "HAMMER AWAY AT ENGLISH?"

"You can drop such subjects as geography and history, but keep hammering away at English whatever else you do'" ho said. "It is simply farcical for p'nkehas, who do not know the Maori mind, to try to make the Maori understand things that cannot possibly concern him. What ;is the use of trying to make a class of Maoris, as I heard one teaehe'r do, visualise the beauty of an English landscape? . The vast majority of us have no conception of it." By teaching the Maoris the. rudiments of the English language, and so promoting au easy moans of communication with their pakeha brothers, a useful purpose would be achieved. The young New Zealand-born pakeha was already walking about without being acutely conscious that a dark-skinned brother was walking beside him, and as long as that.was the achievement the educational system was all right.

VILLAGES THE PLACE.

Some people complained that in spite of education the Maori, in the end "went back to the mat," but where else, was he to go? Was ho to spend his life in cities with the- pakehas? No; the Maori village was the proper place for the- educated Maori to go to, and the tribes needed to be prepared to meet him and accept his learning. Thcrofore it was very desirable that the Maori colleges should bo modelled on the right lines with that aim in view.