UNIFICATION OF SCHOOLS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22320, 3 May 1947, Page 4

UNIFICATION OF SCHOOLS

Sir, —For the benefit of “Democracy” and those of your readers who may believe he is speaking authoritatively, I must contradict mis-statements and opinions he expressed. Many of his facts, in my opinion, were as erroneous as his reasoning was fallacious. . He states that far more Maori children are taught in board schools than in Native schools. The fact is that slightly over 50 per cent attend board schools, . leaving to native schools slightly under 50 per cent. He then states that this fact is suffiicent to knock the bottom out of the native school system. I fail to sec how logic can draw any such inference; it is merely a statement of his own opinion. Later, tie states; “It is admitted that a board school is a standard higher than a native school.” No such thing is admitted except in “Democracy’s own mind. The curricula, in both types of school, while moving along parallel lines, have their emphasis in divergent aspects. Historically it was fated that the Maori and pakeha should live in the one land, the Maori requiring to absorb the social, political and economic life of the pakeha. That he has gone so far in absorbing in less than a century what it has taken the pakeha many centuries to evolve, stands to the everlasting credit of the Maori race. It also proves the necessity for native schools with needs different from those of pakeha children. Hence arises the difference in methods adopted in those schooIs.—PUKENGA. Sir, —“Democracy’s” statement that a native school teacher does pretty well what ho likes is not correct. That methods of his own are different from those he employed in board schools is merely a reflection of the fact that the needs of the native schools are different. He is allowed by those in authority more freedom; his initiative is not cramped so much by the conservative hand of officialdom. The fact that at some time the children of some school have been under the necessity of collecting their own firing can quite easily be as great a source ol’ pride as is their pride today that, through the children’s own exertions, the cleanliness in native schools is unsurpassed anywhere in New Zealand. Education does not consist of book-knowledge only. ! “Democracy's” last paragraph is a gem of muddled thinking. A general accusation' is made to appear a fact, the premise from which is drawn a conclusion which has nothing to do with the point at issue and is itself incorrect. This conclusion “that educated Maoris are not taken into conference in the drawing-up of the syllabus,” the following will disprove. I have, among other reports on Maori education, reports from Ngati-Poneke at Wellington in October, 1944, from the full Maori conference at Rotorua in March, 1945, and from Ngati-Kahungunu at Wairoa in January, 1945, typed over the names of such well known Maoris as Bishop Bennett, M. Winiata, A. T. Carroll and R. M. Love, besides others; quite enough

to disprove “Democracy’s” opinion and to prove that the Maori race is not only given but takes as great an interest in the education of its children as do the parents of board children. — INTERESTED.