E.—2

12

and more effective, probably in geometrical rather than arithmetical ratio. The young people referred to will be the Maori men and women of mark in the future, and will undoubtedly be the leaders of thought and practice among their people. Can it be doubted that the change of leadership, gradual though it be, will have a very profound effect on the destinies of the whole Maori race? An American View of Native Schools. It may not be considered improper to close this report with an extract from The Nation (the American equivalent of the Saturday Beview) of 26th March, 1896. It is taken from a long and able article on " The Maoris," and has apparently been written by a member of the newspaper staff returning from a holiday trip to New Zealand: — " . . . New Zealand maintains an efficient system of State education, in no department more admirable than in relation to colored citizens. There is a Native School Department, and wherever there is a likelihood of attenders a Native school is established and maintained at the cost of the State. The teaching is somewhat more elementary and practical than in the ordinary schools. There are sixty-five such, maintained at a cost of £15,000, besides four high schools for advanced Maori scholars. Maoris may attend white schools if such are convenient, and, vice versa, white children the Maori schools.. It is the policy of the Education Department, as white settlers increase in or on the borders of a Maori district, to merge the Native schools into ordinary State schools. I visited several of the pure Maori; Maori in which there were few whites; and one lately Maori now converted into a State school. This last was especially interesting—eighty boys and girls, about equally divided as to race, mixed in their seats and classes. Surely the manners and dispositions of the dark-skinned cannot be of a low type, or the parents would never submit to such an admixture. . . . For the first time a census does not register a diminution in numbers. Educational and other influences are perhaps beginning to tell favourably. One of the enumerators in the last census reports that there is a marked decrease in general drinking habits, and adds that tribal intermarriage the Maoris ' now recognize as being a means of staying their hitherto decline.' An admirable handbook on hygiene is used in the Native schools: It is specially directed to pointing out, in the kindest spirit, the respects in which Maori customs are deficient. In the latest edition I remark several footnotes to the effect —' This was true in 1884'; ' This is not true now, in 1894,' &c. ; ' Intermarriages will probably increase in number. . . '. Looking to the long future, the race is more likely to be absorbed than to maintain its individuality." I have, &c, The Inspector-General of Schools. James H. Pope.