WELFARE OF THE MAORI

Taranaki Daily News, 20 January 1930, Page 14

WELFARE OF THE MAORI

PERIOD' OF ADOLESCENCE. Tho dangers surrounding adolescent Alaori children were summed up in a paper delivered by Mr. P. Smyth at the summer school at New Plymouth on Saturday morning. The necessity for educational remedies and the improvement of homo conditions was stressed. The period of adolescence was momentous in the education of the Alaori, said Air. Smyth. “Wo 'listen to assertions of earlier adolescence among Alaoris as compared with Europeans, -but people interested in the question must beware of generalisations in this field.” He had the question of adolescence in mind when considering the question of education; for, during this period, adolescence would be developing to the full with ideal protection from the dangers attendant upon lack of proper home control. Tho cry at present seemed to be to get the adolescents away from the pa- to a college after primary school work, or marry tho girls off as soon, as possible. The latter alternative was, of course, what was happening in most cases, because of tiri paucity of ■ opportunity to enter Ma.ori (hoarding schools which were so few in number that their efficacy was hardly felt. Such early marriage merely perpetuated and accentuated the existing lack of good homo influence with disastrous cli'ect on racial stamina and pride. Tho post primary period was doubtless tho most crucial in Alaori welfare and little was being done to better the, deplorable conditions obtaining. The private secondary schools, if they could be called such, were the only high schools for Alaoris. A number of Alaoris ■ attended Departmental High school and a few did very well, and often just as well as the Europeans; but those belonged to the type of individual who would forge ahead under almost any condition. The private secondary schools for Alaoris were controlled by different denominations; but those began at the wrong end. Tho several denominations might get greater success if they controlled the education of the pupils from the very beginning and supplied their teachers from the ranks of tho schools.

With the absence of good home influence the adolescent period must be a serious problem, and it seemed that for a generation or two a post primary education covering five to six years or more must bear the burden, until the home influeiico was improved. The girls, more particularly, required a full education to protect them from, the vicissitudes and sex dangers of the home. The Maori girl was not by any means naturally immoral —some scoffers, chiefly creatures who thrive on filth, would like to believe so —'but she responded to tho civilised code of respectabiltiy to the best of her ability. The average Alaori girl had many excellent qualities, and a most lovable disposition, but there was a certain degree of responsibility wanting, because of her early home life. In all these discussions, said Air. Smyth, he was speaking of the average Alaori home and parent. The Alaori girl should have every opportunity to learn housecraft and all its branches, hygienic motherhood and all the sacrifices, conditions and dangers that went with motherhood. With these inculcated at the high school, her haven of safety during adolescence, she should have a good foundation for revolutionising home conditions. During the.period of adolescence, long and frequent nights at dances, insufficient and unseasonable clothing, lack of good food and insufficient rest played havoc with the constitutions of both sexes, and consumption, the dreadful scourge of the Alaoris, had a most suitable breeding ground. Billiard rooms and drinking bouts degraded the youth almost before they lost their milk teeth. Youths and maidens alike were thrown into a maelstrom, pitchforked as it were from the native school door.

Ono or two fortunate ones from some districts reached a Maori boarding school through the beneficence of the Government which provided the Maori population of 64,000 with 17 scholarships, tenable for two years. At the end of the two years the pupils were just beginning to see light and to sec the need of thinking for themselves, when they were catapulted into the world; to receive no sympathy if they did not show that they were partially Europeanised, lie was forced to tho conclusion that is was necessary to mould the system of education to revolutionise home conditions.