IN THE EARLY DAYS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 14 May 1925, Page 9

IN THE EARLY DAYS.

DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS

STRUGGLES OF PiOiNFERS.

“The fifty years since last we met Seem to me ulty lonos bu-URtl -anti •set.”

So said the great po<s and seer Longfeliow. It is our endeavour to pierce the mists of that halt ceiitiny than lies between tiie great institutions of to-day in winch are taught the hundreds of pupns sun oundea and aided in' their work by every -convenience that modern, science can employ and modern, nietllods devise, and tha-t till) one or two room building where a. master can be visualised, with a small number of >ull standards, like the sole teacher school of to-day, struggling to give tliose children a grounding in w r hat has so often been called the three It’s, an expression which was very real in the early days of educational i schemes. Lucky they were, those children of fifty years ago, that they could get even .such teaching. Hawera was then an infant settlement, not long emerged from the throes of the war with the Maoris, which devastated much of the countryside and kept the settlement but a few short years before in a constant state of terror. Olio ca.n easily picture the scene when the danger irom the Hauiiau* and Titokowaru was so real that a.ll settlers were ordered into the blockhouse, and earlier when they were forced to leave their farms and take refuge in the Canadian Redoubt, built by the Aiiddlcmases and the Douglases. Then, too, the risk increased so greatly that all who were in the redoubt with the women .and children, went by rough bullock and horse dray south to, Pa.tea, and thence to Wanganui. Those were the times just immediately preceding the birth of education in this district. Many of the first pupils of that little school which formed the groundwork of the fine building of to-day went through those hard and perilous experiences. The terror of those times,, either known to them or told them by their parents, must have been mirrored on their child minds, and often been recalled when they sat at their desks. They serve to show wliiat obstacles had to be overcome, in those early days

Mr. Wm. Wallace, of recalls coining to the district when there were only about half-a-dozen children here. In 1868 the Middlemases and Douglases were in the Canadian Redoubt built by them after- TuruturuMokai. Mrs. M. J. Campbell and Mrs. J. Cowper, little children at that time, were there- before the evacuation, and both received what little teaching there was available then, Mrs. Campbell and her brother, W. Douglas, were too among the early pupils of the Hawera' School. These few' were, he states, the only children between Stony River and Fatea.. it is a wonderful tribute to the womenfolk in that little centre, that they remained so long in the face of a great danger from the Hauhaus. They told the men. of a reinforcement sent- lip the da-v after Turuturu-Mokai. of whom Mr. Wallace wvas one,' “that their men were there and they had got to stay too.” Just after that all the /settlers had to evacuate to Patea, and then to Wanganui, but by March, 1869, they were beginning to go back, and the forces occupied "Wai-hi in 1869. THE FIRST SCHOOL.

It will be of historic interest, 'and possibly will recall, to some former residents incidents connected therewith, to record that/before the building of the Hawera .School efforts to give instruction had been carried on tor several years, i Old residents recall, from tiie recesses of their memory, a little school ( ( taught by a Aire. Oakes as far back jug 1870 in a little building behind where Messrs. Bennett and Sutton's premises now stand. Airs. J. Cowper, who- was a Miss Douglas, recalls school, being taught in a Government cottage in a part of the town where now is Albion Street.

it is a matter of history that the blockhouse—a building with a most varied and interesting history—was used for school lor several years previous to- 1575, for Mr. AY. Al. Douglas, one of the first pupils on the records of the school, attended at the blockhouse, and while there secured- a prize, which he ©till possesses. It was dated April 21. 1871. and bears the signature of Kearney, the teacher, who, Air. Douglas states, was an Indian Mutiny man. The veteran, said Mr. Douglas, delighted at times to appear adorned with all. hi© war medals.

Two names of men, famous afterwards in the educational and scientific life of the Dominion, a.re recalled by that little book, for it i.s a “New Zealand Geography,'” written by T. A. Bowden some time later;an inspector, and James Hector, well known then and afterwards as Dr. Hector, one of the best known men in Government scientific circles. EARLIEST TEACHERS.

Of. the earliest teachers before the school was. built, it lias been difficult to got many details. An old resident recalls; a little school in what is now Princes Street, near the old Technical. School, and fronting Nelson Street, before blockhouse days. Air. AY. Douglas has recalled some reminiscences, of Mr. Kearney at the Blockhouse, the grizzled old mutiny veteran ; and also a, Mrs. Oakes who taught school in a. tiny house to the north-side of High Street. The only other teacher of whom any record can be secured is Mr. Hock ness, who had been keeping a private school in Wanganui and who. came to the infant settlement and took elm-go at (he BlocklHHi.se and continued fo>- vrum time until flic Government, took over the control of c luoaTon. These. records. recall (be difficult times read of in the haekbleeks of early settled countries. / Of Air. Harkness an old resident says:—“He waf b-'-'igbk up to Hawera. through tjhe influence of Rev. Mr. Hogg, one pf the earliest Presbyterian ministers'. He was a. great teacher and an ball round mail. Tic used to turn a hem and show the girls lmw to sew, there being no sewing mistresses in those days.”