Native Schools.

Hastings Standard, Issue 74, 22 July 1896, Page 4

Native Schools.

From an interesting report on the Native schools of the colony by Mr J. H. Pope, Inspector, and which is just to hand, we extract the following : Rising Young Maoris and Theie Influence. A new factor is being gradually Introduced among the data on which the solution of the Maori problem depends. In bygone years all hopeful views concerning the future of the Maori were at once airily set aside with the aid of the formula —" Well, you know, you can educate the Maori up to a certain point, but This formula with the unutterable ending is no longer of service. There are now in New Zealand many young Maori men and women who have advanced far beyond the reach of such criticism, and are well fitted in everyway to take their place among the best Europeans —if the word " bestis used in any rational sense. Besides these there are here and there to be found young Maoris of very respectable or even high literary attainments. In correspondence, then, with the external agencies and appliances that are being brought to bear ou the "civilisation" of the Maoris, there is an internal force at work which is bound to become more and more effective, probably in goometrical rather than arithmetical ratio. The young people referred to will be the Maori men and women of mark in the future, and will undoubtedly be the leaders of thought and practice among their people. Can it be doubted that the change of leadership, gradual though it be, wiil have a very profound effect on the destinies of the whole Maori race ? An Aiikisican View of Native Schools. It may not be considered improper to close this report with an extract from The Nation (the American equivalent of the Saturday Keview) of 26th March, 1898. It is taken from a long and able article on "The Maoris," and has apparently been written by a member of the newspaper staff returning from a holiday trip to New Zealand " New Zealand maintains an efficient system of State education, in no department more admirable than in relation to colored citizens. There is a Native School Department, and wherever there is a likelihood of attenders a Native school is established and maintained at the cost of the colony. The teaching is somewhat more elementary and practical than in the ordinary schools. There are 65 such, maintained at a cost of £15,000, besides four high schools for advanced Maori scholars. Maoris may attend white schools if such are convenient, and, rive white children Maori schools. It is the policy of the Education Department, as white settlers increase in or on the borders of a Maori district, to merge the Native schools into ordinary State schools. I visited several of the pure Maori ; Maori in which there were few whites; and one lately Maori now converted into a State school. This last was especially interesting—Bo boys and girls, about equally divided as to race, mixed in their seats and classes. Surely the manners and dispositions of the dark-skinned cannot be of a low type, or the parents would never submit to such an admixture. For the first time a census does not register a diminution in numbers. Educational and other influences are perhaps beginning to tell favorably. One of the enumerators in the last census reports that there is a marked decrease in general drinking habits, and adds that tribal intermarriage the Maoris ' now recognize as being a means of staying their hitherto decline.' An admirable handbook on hygiene is used in the Native schools. It is specially directed to pointing out, in the kindest spirit, the respects in which Maori customs axe deficient. In the latest edition I remark several footnotes to the effect —' This was true in 1884 ' ; ' This is not true now, in 1894,' &c. ; ' Intermarriages will probably increase in number.' Looking to the long future, the race is more likely to be absorbed than to maintain its individuality."