TRAINING MAORI BOYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19957, 28 May 1928, Page 11

TRAINING MAORI BOYS.

NEW SCHOOL AT NORTHCOTE. ROMAN CATHOLIC ENTERPRISE. - TUITION IN AGRICULTURE. A training school for Maori boys has been established by the Roman Catholic Church in College Road, Northcote. The buildings, to be known as St. Peter's Rural Training School, will be opened by Bishop Cleary next Sunday afternoon. The ground, which forms part of an educational trust, occupies over 30 acres and commands a fine view overlooking Shoal Bay. The buildings, which were designed by Mr. J. 0. Owen, were erected at a cost of £6OOO, part of which was provided by the diocese and part by the Government. They will provide accommodation for three tutors and 25 students. In this school Maori boys who have passed the sixth standard, or who have gone past school age, will receive from clerical and lay teachers a sound training in agriculture, carpentry and elementary ironwork with a view to sending them to their homes as skilled, self-reliant and useful members of their several communities. k Tho course of training will occupy two years and will be gratuitous throughout. Special weight will be attached to the formation of character through the religious and moral training of the students, sufficient grounding being given in Christian doctrine to enable the boys to take the part, if they desire, of assistant, religious teachers and catechists on their return to their people. "St. Peter's Rural Training School is an effort on our part to turn out young men of the native race soundly equipped to be an uplifting moral influence among their own people, to cultivate their lands to the best advantage, to improve their homes and to add to the material prosperity of our Dominion," states the invitation to Sunday's ceremony. "The upkeep of the school will involve additional burdens to the Maori missionary fathers. They rely on their fellow-citizens, men and women alike, to aid them in maintaining St. Peter's Rural Training School as a live-wire institution for the spiritual and temporal betterment of the Maori race." The Very Rev. Dean Van Dijk, Superior of the Mill Hill Fathers, has supervised the establishment of this new branch of activity. The Rev. Father Spierings will be in charge of the manual department.