STIRRING BY-GONE DAYS

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 11 July 1935, Page 4

STIRRING BY-GONE DAYS

EDUCATION IN THE BEGINNING Fort Used as Schoolroom HOSTILE NATIVE RACE. In the 60 years that have gone by great institutions have arisen in which are taught hundreds of pupils surrounded and aided in their work by every convenience that modern science can employ and modern methods devise —a strange comparison with that small building where one master, with a small number of all standards, struggled to

give them but an elementary grounding. /Performing as it did many useful functions in those stirring bygone days when Haivcra was but. a military outpost, the old military blockhouse, which stood on the site of the present Municipal Library, also' sheltered the first public school. 'Devoid of suitable furniture, the school was in a. primitive state when, on April 1, 1875. Mr Robert Lee, the Wellington Education Board’s inspector, made his first entry on the leg book and remarked that the “results were low.” There were then 2!) boys and 1.9 girls on the books, of whom 1!) boys and 11 girls were present; 1.1 boys, ami live girls passed Std. 1 1, and five boys passed Sid. 9, tt wasj recorded that at that date a new school j was being built “on a very suitable plan.” The site of the blockhouse .was! a hill in those days—the. only hill that! the town ever possessed. When the! buildings were removed the area wasj levelled and the spoil removed to till j hollow places in oilier parts. J

XTKST FORT—FIRST CHURCH. A structure of -journo slab walls, with the interstices Jilled with gravel and gable-roofed, liie blockhouse, strictly speaking, consisted of two buildings, but the palisaded guard yard between them made the two into one solid block, rough but formidable. From the turreted ends look-outs could keep watch in troublesome times. Very aptly- the blockhouse has been described as “the lirst fori, the first church, the. first school and the first town hall.” Hawera was then in the throes of the wets with the Maoris which devastated much of the countryside and kept the settlement in a constant state of terror. One cannot readily visualise the picture, in our present strength and security, of the danger from the Hauhnus. Titokownru was so real that all. the settlers were ordered into the

blockhouse and, earlier, they were forced to leave their farms and take refuge in the Canadian redoubt built j before the blockhouse by tho Middlej uiascs ami the Douglases. Later the I risk increased so greatly that all who j were in the redoubt with tho women ( and children went by rough bullock : and horse dray south to Pa lea, and i thence to Wanganui. .

PERILOUS EXPERIENCES. Those were the times just immediately .preceding the birth of education. Many of the first pupils of that little school Which formed the groundwork of the extensive institutions of to-day went through those hard and perilous experiences. The terror of those times, oithcr known to them or told to them by their parents, must have been mirrored on their child minds and often been recalled when they sat at their desks. In ISOS , the Middlemases anu the Douglases were in- the Canadian Redoubt built by them after TuruturuMokai, ami it was there that Mrs M. J. Campbell and Mr William Douglas, little children at that time, received what little; teaching there was 'available. Mrs Campbell and her brother, William Douglas, Mr A. V. Tait (Kaponga) and Mrs J. Oughton (Okaiawa) were among the foundation pupils of the present Hawera school. Before the building of tlie Hawera school efforts to give instruction had been carried out in various ways for several years. A little school was taught by a Airs Oakes as far back as 1870 in a little building behind where Messrs Bennett and Sutton’s promises now stand, while school was taught in a Government cottage, still standing to this day, iii Albion Street, near the borough yards. Before the blockhouse days there was also a tiny school near what is now the dairv laboratory in

Princes Street fronting Nelson Street, the only other teacher of whom any record can be secured being Mr C. M. Harkness, who had been keeping a private school in Wanganui and (who came to the infant settlement and took charge as teacher until the Government assumed control of education. He was an all-round man and could even do a woman’s work, turning a hem and showing the girls how to sew. William Douglas, one of the first pupils, secured a prize at the blockhouse which still remains in thp family. It is dated 1871 and bears the signature of Mr W. J. Kearney, a teacher who was an Indian Mutiny, man and delighted at times to appear adorned with all his war medals. * The first Government teacher was Mr F. J. Dunne, who, on May 13, 1875, transferred his classes to the new school on- Main South Road. LAND ENDOWMENTS.

i The small group of schools of which j Hawera was one was controlled by me Patea Education Board, which afterwards was merged into the. Wanganui Board. Tho chief school in the district was Patea, for in those days- Patea ■was a much larger towji than Hawera. The chairman 'was Mr Tom Middleinas —a shrewd Scotsman who took good care to see that the Patea Board was well endowed'with large grants of land —tlie revenue from which helped to pay what was then considered to be good salaries to its teachers. The Patea Board had no inspector of its own, anc? the examinations wore conducted by .Mr Lee, the Wellington Board’s inspector One can imagine tho amount of travelling he had to do in order to I cover the scattered schools in his charge. Hawera, therefore, had to be content with one visit a year.

Boys and girls of to-day may look back with pity on their predecessors in the matter of games. As a matter of fact there were no organised games in the smaller schools at all. The bigger boys perhaps spent their time chasing one another about, the grounds, the smaller ones in digging holes in the soft soil about the school. The girls divided their time between skipping ropes and marbles. On wet days pupils might crowd into the single porch or perhaps crawl about under the building, for there were no shelter sheds. Pupils came from all parts of the district and those from a distance were usually on horseback. The young Holmes came from their uncle’s place at the Waingongoro, Ruby Gore, the Petersens and the Hicks from near the Tangahoe, and tire Larcoms from Turuturu. No one but Maoris lived on the other side of the Tawhiti, and it was considered quite out of the question to allow them to attend. As the metalled roads extended a short distance only from the centre of. the town it was almost impossible for young pupils to come any distance in winter.

’The curriculum was confined to the three IPs with a little geography and history. There was quite an outcry when one teacher introduced “a little fancy writing and drawing,” but in spite of ail the drawbacks, and there were many, a good foundation was laid. Many rose to eminence in various professions, tho law, medicine, 1 and the church, and all good, intelligent farmers, tradesmen and citizens. Air Lee was burly of frame and rather overbearing in manner. Still he was a kindly man and if he was somewhat’of a tyrant who could wonder at it, after his long years of service dealing with children who often must have sorely tried his temper.