VALUES OF A MAORI BOARDING SCHOOL by TIWHIA Last December (1957) I said a sad farewell to a college that had been my home for the past six years. Looking back, I regard those years not merely as “old school years” but as years of moral, cultural and educational moulding. I have been left with a new sense of responsibility and a desire to work always for the good of this country and the people in it. First let me assert that I am just another old boy of the college—no one worthy of more attention than any other old boy, in fact what I say here may have been said before and has probably been in the minds of hundreds of men and women from Maori church boarding schools over New Zealand. I do not wish you to think that I am a person of great responsibility or high position; neither do I wish to sound as if I am just boasting about my own school—I am merely pointing out some of the benefits that I personally have received over the past six years and the advantages that a Maori church boarding school has over the ordinary day schools. I come from the West Coast of the North Island—from a predominantly European locality—and my primary school days were spent with Pakeha youngsters. I must confess that although I am a half-caste Maori, I hardly knew the real meaning of the word “Maori”. I was completely oblivious to the proud heritage into which I had been born. I knew nothing of Maori culture and had the greatest difficulty in pronouncing Maori place names, let alone in speaking the language. I was to all intents and purposes a “Maori pakeha.” Then in February 1952, I started as a 3rd former at Te Aute Maori Boys' College in Central Hawkes Bay. I was barely 13 and had never been away fom home for more than a few weeks at a time. It was the start of a new life in many ways—my pals were now all Maori youngsters, I was living in a Maori community away from parental care, I was just one of a large family and had to do my share (small though it was) towards the life of the college. At the same time I was beginning to realise that I was a Maori and that it was just about time for me to wake up and be one. Fortunately, Maori was a compulsory subject and at last I was able to set about learning the language of my forefathers—a language which up till then I had scarce heard about. I also found the opportunity to join the Maori Culture group which taught members old Maori games (such as “whai” and “ti ringa”) as well as old and modern action songs and hakas. A pleasing feature about the culture group was that it was conducted entirely by senior boys who were ever so keen that these treasures of Maoridom should be preserved by lads like ourselves. In addition to the above we were fortunate in having in our library a special section on New Zealand history and literature and it was with an increasing interest that I delved into books by such writers as Buck. Kohere, Best and Ramsden. Wistfully I looked back on my early childhood days regretting the fact that I had been content to let such an inheritance slip carelessly away. Meanwhile I was beginning to see a better conception of Maori ways and was able to appreciate the differences between European and Maori social life. Here we were—about 120 young Maori boys from all sorts of homes in all sorts of places, thrown together for 40 weeks of the year. Together we played, laughed, and worked and each was able to contribute something that was new to the others: a new phase of culture, a tribal characteristic, a new haka, stories about “home”—all went to unify us. From our midst leaders were arising to be given positions of authority—prefects, rugby captains, house captains — indeed those who had powers of leadership were given every opportunity to develop them. As far as scholastic work itself went the facilities were all that could be desired. No outside distractions to drag one away from lessons prevailed; the nightly two hours compulsory prep., at first irksome, was later sincerely appreciated and following the example of others, I used much of my spare time to do still extra study. Numbers of us have reaped the benefits from this in the