somehow always is on them, in this novel. The all-powerful Director, of whom everyone speaks in awed tones is highly praised by one of the visiting educationists: ‘He is a man of sensitive principle’, are the words he uses. Here the tongue is dangerously close to coming out of the cheek. Naturally, much energy is wasted on unsatisfied love—her memories, the Senior Inspector, the feeble Paul all manage to sap her and weaken her. But she is always sustained by the children, admires the core of their Maori character—the ever present aroha in their lives: ‘What are you crying for, Very Little One? I tip her chin. ‘That's why Wiki she's cheeky for me. Wiki. It's always relationship they cry over …. * * …. Livers, all of them, in full measure. Not too much of what is commonly known as work, but oh, the living they accomplish. Because of this preoccupation with the personal relationship the work of many of them doesn't get done. But I cultivate and honour it …. The few European children at the school, on the other hand, she pities: ‘I call white Dennis, a very obedient and clean little boy, who already at five has had a serious nervous illness … Such a little thing with such a big unknown burden.’

EARLY VICTORIAN NEW ZEALAND A Study of Racial Tension and Social Attitudes 1839–1852 by John Miller, Ph.D. 217 pages illustrated 30/- N.Z. The Wakefields were a family of adventurers with a vision of empire which was to colour the thinking of the Victorian Age. In this informative and entertaining study, Dr Miller describes in detail their attempt to impose an early Victorian pattern on one corner of Polynesia, and the tensions which resulted therefrom. … of all booksellers … OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WELLINGTON

That just about sums up Miss Vorontosov's picture of her own race. She is not content with this idea of hers develop through all its stages: her own civilization, she sees in the Maori children a life force of which she wants to be part. She says: ‘…. I am as clay in the hands of this force, this something that told my delphiniums when to bud; this will that is frighteningly present in my infant room, deeply at large beneath the lid of orthodoxy and discipline …’ What does she give in return? A wild sort of motherly love; how much she would have liked to be the mother of all these children. ‘By the time the six lovely simple weeks of the summer holiday have drawn to their conclusion, my arms have become itchy on the inside to hold children. From the wrists on the inner side along the skin right up to the shoulders and across the breast I know a physical discomfort. If ever flesh spoke mine does; for the communion of hands, the arms stretching round my waist, and black heads bumping my breasts.’ But she has, in addition, a special gift of her own to offer them: the gift of reading. An astonishingly large part of this novel is simply about Miss Vorontosov teaching the children to read, and that is not a dull part: It is the most exciting adventure in the book. Teaching becomes, in her hands what it was in the beginning of the world, when the old men showed the young the sacred mysteries of the tribe; it becomes revelation. This is how she teaches: ‘What is Rangi's background?’ I ask the Head. ‘His father is a pugilist who runs a gambling den at the pub.’ ‘What are you frightened of, Rangi? I ask as he sits in a knot of others. (No artificial discipline in this class, only companionship) ‘P'lice’ ‘Why?’ ‘P'lice they takes me to goal and cuts me up with a butcher-knife.’ I print these words on separate cards and give them to him. And Rangi, who lives on love and kisses and thrashings and fights and fear of the police and who took four months to learn ‘come’, ‘look’, ‘and’ takes four minutes to learn: butcher-knife Daddy gaol Mummy police Rangi sing haka cry fight kiss So I make a reading card for him: out of these words, which he reads at first sight, his first reading, and his face lights up with understanding.’ She calls this the ‘key vocabulary’, and we see how she gets the idea, how she explains it to the Senior Inspector, to all the curious prominent visitors, and so forth; how she makes a vividly