EDUCATION RESERVES, &c.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 662, 19 July 1871, Page 2

EDUCATION RESERVES, &c.

Any person taking the trouble of reading some 90 pages in Appendix No. 1, House of Representatives, 1870, relative to our " Religious, Charitable, and Education Reserves," may be considered to have performed a virtuous action, and a treble meed of praise should be awarded him. If not satisfied by the details there given, he should wade through the 85 pages in Appendix No. 2, where their acreage, object, and period nf reservation are shewn forth, and he might possess the courage to eliminate such trusts from all other reserves, and by a long sum in addition find their total acreaga We have some shadowy recollection of the Press having performed this charitable labor; but, failing to find the "copy" in which inserted, have had to perform the process of adding up a longer sum than was ever meted out to us for transgression in the days of our adolescence. We will not vouch for the strict accuracy of our calculations, but they are sufficiently near the mark for our present purpose. We have looked at the long columns of figures week after week, and shrunk from our self-imposed task, wishing that Mr Hall, when moving for the returns, should have caused the reserves made for different purposes to have been separated, or class!fi^ 5 , and the to!a!s given in a convenient lorm, so that at a glanqe for educational, charitable, or utilitarian purposes in each province could be seen. Our educational system and educational reserves have lately been prominently brought before the public. Some provinces have contributed largely towards the fostering of future and present education, by the alienation of large blocks of land. Other provinces appear to have ignored the subject almost altogether. In some localities the trust estates for this purpose call for no comment j in others, the revenues are not applied for educational purposes at all, and in several places for an entirely different purpose to that for which granted. One denomination, not unlike the horse leech, ever crying " Give, give," have sold the land reposed to their keeping, pleading the discipline of their Church as an excuse or reason for so doing. Sufficient cause is therefore shown by the evidence at hand for the General Government to interfere, and demand that where no provision hife been made for educating children, such si violation of right conduct should be' rectified ; and where estates have been granted, and reserves made for specific purposes, that the object intended by the donor, or the purpose of the reserve, should be legitimately carried out. It is comforting to reflect that we have done as much as is apparent But, now is the time to ascertain whether we have done all that is wanted to be done—whether sufficient land has been already reserved for educational purposes or not, and if deemed insufficient, to make immediate providence for future scholastic necessities. Such reserves of Crown Lands appear to us a wiser mode of providing means for the education of our children than any other plan that could be devised, provided that they are so hedged in by legislation that malversation is prevented, and the purpose of the grant maintained in its integrity. At the present time, in round numbers, by Ordinances, Enactments, and Grants, 220,000 acres have been set apart for educational purposes. Otago and Southland contribute towards this amount 150,000 acres; Auckland, 27,000 acres; Canterbury, 19,000 acres; Nelson, 10,000 acres; the other provinces reserving the remainder. Westland, with 18,000 inhabitants, reserves 42 acres; Napier, with a third of the population, 150 acres; Taranaki and Marlborough, combined, 3100 acres. The above figures clearly indicate that a further general provision for the culture of our children is imperative. Those provinces so lax in the performance of this duty must have their power taken from them, and exercised in their behalf. Westland may plead for, her neglect recent settlement as an excuse j while Hawke's Bay should have learned 9. lesson from the donors of the Te Ante estate. And as this same gift—the Te Ante estate —appears to afford a fair example of the administration of grants of land given by Natives for the purpose " of educating their children as Europeans," we shall briefly narrate its history and present position. Situate in the province of Hawke's Bay, it extends over an area of 7,779 acres, all of which is fenced in, but a detached block of 1748 acres. A large portion of the enclosed land is sown with English grass ; all the fences and buildings are in good repair, and at the last shearing we have reason to believe the number of sheep shorn would number about 8000. The land having been given by the Maoris for educational purposes, a school tJ in a temporary building was opened in 1854,; and closed in 1859. Since 1859 there has been no school or scholars on the estate. Its present rental is about £6OO per annum. The Commissioners say on this case that « The attention of the Trustees seem to have been directed towards the improvement of the estate as a pastoral farm; but the purpose for which the land was given by the original native owners, —viz., that their children should be educated as Europeanshas been abandoned." Crossing the island, and coming to Wanganui, we find about a third of the then existing town site given for educational pur. poses to our religious denomination. Near the town of Wanganui there is a reserve of 250 acres for an Industrial School Endowment, " for the education of children of her Majesty's subjects of all xaces, and of other poor and destitute persons being inhabitants of islands in the Pacific Ocean." The sum of £7OO was placed at the disposal of the Trustees; £4OO to be expended in a building, and £3OO for improving the land. The rent roll of the estate is stated to be £247 per annum. The evidence of the master is sufficient proof how the intent of the trust has been frustrated. He gives evidence as follows " The remuneration is arranged in the following manner:—Subject to my having another master engaged, £l5O a year; £IOO a year if I have not another master engaged. This is paid out of the trust fund. In addition, I am authorised to

charge in respect of each boy attending £6 per annum for boys under eleven years of age, and £7 for boys over eleven years of aga I should mention that lam at liberty to take boarders, in respect of which I can fix my own teims, and have generally about six boarders." Mr Watt deposes of the same institution, "The object of the grant, as a means of supporting a school, has been departed from. In place of its being a school for indigent children, the fees for pupils are higher than those of any school in the placa" At Porirua Harbor, Otaki, ind Wairarapa, still in the province of Wellington, some 1060 acres of valuable land has been ceded for educational purposes. It will suffice to say the school established is not flourishing; while at Porirua Harbor, where 500 acres of the reserve yields a yearly rental of £IOO, attempts have been made to erect a schoolhouse, which failed. The Otaki estate has been all fenced in, and improved to a very great extent; and it has been farmed, and the proceeds devoted to the support of a boarding school, from 1854 to 1868. The average attendance daring this time was about 40—Maori and halfcaste children. Its annual value is about £250. Mr Hadfield gives evidence tending to shew that Hauhauism may not be the sole cause for the declension of the Institution. He says :—■" I have occasionally seen 1 the children at the Collega They appeared at these times just like other Maoris. I once saw ten or a dozen of the boys squatting round a dish of potatoes on the floor, in the middle of the room. The Maori parents are unwilling to part with their children, and are discouraged as to the results generally, as well as to what they learnt as to their acquirement of civilised habits. One Maori said he did not send his children there because they were so dirty. I think it was a matter of public notoriety that the school was a failure." Before leaving the province of Wellington we may quote the following from the Commissioners' report:—" Where so much appears of an unsatisfactory nature, it is gratifying to refer to circumstances in which the objects of the trusts appear to have been well attended to. Among these the Commissioners may mention the school for native girls, at what is called the St Joseph's. Providence, at Wellington—the site of which institution' was granted ; to the Roman Catholic Bishop. An inspection ox the school, made without any warning or preparation whatever, seemed sufficient to show, both as to the building itself and the children resident therein, the exemplary manner in which the institution is conducted." The Institution stands on an acre of ground in the city of Wellington, and is supported by the rent of land at Porirua, yielding £3O per annum, and a section in the city of Wellington, yielding £2O ; and appears, with two exceptions —St. Stephen's School, at Waitemata, and the Catholic School, at Takapuna, both in the province of Auckland —to afford an illustration alone of Native Educational Trust Estates' wise administration. These Trustsin the North Wand amount to 14,300 acres—chiefly ceded by Native owners—'-of which may be written generally "No rents accrued;" "No revenue arising from estate, the buildings falling to decay, and not worth re-insuring" Land once cultivated now overgrown;" " Estate unoccupied;" "Grown over with manuka scrub—though fenced, and has been in grass;" "No scholars, nor have been regularly for six years;" and so on through the bad catalogue. Our war troubles, and heavy colonial debt may, perhaps, owe an appreciable influence to this maladministration and neglect of duty. Scraping a Maori and finding a Hau Hau will not find answer sufficiently convincing, nor afford a reason foi frustrating the good intentions of a donor who alienates his estate for the common good. Education is like a party fence —losing half its utility, unless our neighbor fences his moiety, and educates his children as well as ourselves. It will not suffice that we have done our duty; we must insist on the other Provinces doing theirs in self-defence, to prevent the inroad of ignorance, and its concomitant crime in our midst, adding to the weight on our already tax-burthened shoulders. To console ourselves with the reflection that Wellington and Auckland are some hundreds of miles distant, and can exercise small influence on our population is a false source of solace; as by allowing anyone to grow up in ignorance is to offer a premium to crime, and induce the spread of what we are so anxious to repress. The colony is too small, and the means of travel too easy attained to be considered otherwise than a whola Coming nearer home to the province of Nelson, we find that attempts to educate the Native children have resulted in as complete a failure in our northern province as in the North Island. By the terms of the deed of the purchase of the land lying on the southern shore of Cook's Straits it was covenanted that " lands suitable and sufficient for the residence and proper maintainance of the chiefs, their tribes and families, should be reserved by the Governor, Directors, and Shareholders of the New Zealand Company." The subsequent investigation which took place into the Company's title discovered, however, that some claimants to compensation in the matter of reserved land, had been overlooked; and some 800 acres of land was awarded to the fresh claimants out of the reserves already mada Possibly the New Zealand Company deemed it more prudent to pay them in land which was already reserved for, and allocated among the tribe, than to alienate a further portion of the estate they had lately acquired. A portion of the reserved land at Motueka, in 1853, to the amount of 350 acres, was granted to the Bishop of New Zealand, by Sir George Grey, as an endowment for an Industrial School for the Church of England Natives only. Government grants of land were given to aid the undertaking, and other Native reserves alienated for the same purpose, until Mr Mackay tells us " nine hundred acres have been granted to the Bishop of New Zealand as an endowment for an Industrial School for Native children."

(To be continued.) '