EDUCATING THE MAORIS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13722, 11 April 1908, Page 5

EDUCATING THE MAORIS.

MR. FOWLDS AT TE ARAROA.

PICTURESQUE METAPHORS. ".Welcome to the Minister, who ha?, come on the wings of love, for that is the motive of his visit. was the picturesque form of greeting adopted by the famous old loyal chief Te Hatiwiri Haukamau, in addressing the Hon. George Fowlds, Minister for Education, upon the occasion of his meeting the chiefs and people of the Ngatiporou tribe at Te Ararat recently. " You appear like the leading birds of flight," continued the chief. " You come like the leading lights that we may see you. and you see us We have here tonight amongst us the Minister for Education—he whose body we have never seen before. We welcome you, sir, as one who can give us an opinion regarding our schools, and also regarding matters affecting our health. We have accepted with gratitude the education system granted by the Government. We are further grateful that the wishes we have entertained for our children in connection with the education system have to a very great extent been realised. Perhaps one of our sons, Apirana Ngata, our present representative in Parliament, has invited the Government to send a representative here, so that we might have the Government's mind regarding these imports nt matters. "During the course of my speech T. made use. of the metaphor that you were one of the leading birds of flight.; and I now make use of another metaphor, and that is that you are. the Kotuku, the sacred white crane that flies but nice in a lifetime. These are true historical figures handed down to us by our fathers, signifying men having a mission such as jours is to-night. "Good luck to voir!" In t.hii,; characteristic Maori fashion Hatiwira Haukainau opened his address. He went on to praise the Maori school system, though he had some improvements to suggest. They were: 1. That the native schools be continued under the control of the Education Department and the Government. 2. That the standard of education in the native schools be raised. 3. That more efficient teachers be supplied to these schools. 4. That the powers of the native school committees be extended. 5. That the privileges of Government scholarships, hitherto enjoyed exclusively by the native scholars of the native schools, be extended to the native scholar.? of the board schools. Further, the Maori people desired that more of the educated young Maoris be. engaged as teachers in their schools. The Minister informed the assembled natives that the Government had a well-de-fined policy regarding the native schools, which, up to the present, it had seen no reason to alter. The Government, of course, looked forward to the time when all the schools of the Dominion will be of the same standard, and under the same control, but the condition which they expect to attain before that final result is achieved was as follows:—Before handing over a Maori school to a board of education, the Government expected the children to adopt European ways, and to speak the English, language. An alternative condition was that the majority of the children attending the school should be of European parentage. With' reference to the standard of education in Maori schools, he had no hesitation in saying that it was as high as the children in the schools were willing to work for, and that, generally speaking, it was higher in the purely Maori schools than in the board schools, where a large percentage of the pupils were. Maoris. As regards the salaries of the teachers, since he had become Minister for Education he had adopted a scale of salaries for the headteachers of Maori schools identical with that which prevailed in the board schools of the Dominion. As a. proof that the native school service was becoming increasingly popular in the teaching profession, he mentioned that the Department was continually receiving applications from teachers in the employment of the education boards for positions in the native schools.