which aeroplane parts are tested and repaired, an Auckland businessman, Mr F. Pidgeon, saw the bright red uniforms and heard of their remote and unusual origin. He asked the head teacher: “Would your children like a ride on the plane?” He put what seemed to us quite a large sum of money on the counter and five boys, chosen by lot, went up the little Tourist Air Transport amphibian plane for a scenic tour over Auckland harbour. Fortune was most perceptive in its choice. Among the five were three of our best boys and also the heroes of the tour. Wiri and Morris. The latter was in convulsions of excitement when the plane took off. The boys saw the whole of Auckland below them and our party became like little insects. Oddly enough, most of the children had seen the plane before as it often flies over Punaruku to the Bay of Islands.

VI GOING HOME

OUR ADULT MEMBERS WERE VALUABLE The three non-teaching adults in our party were a great success. The school committee secretary helped with the administration; both ladies took much responsibility over the meals—the cutting of lunches, and any help needed by the cook. All three went along to most of the educational fixtures and learned a great deal. In this respect 75-year-old Waitai was perhaps the most remarkable. He observed the factories most minutely, greatly enjoyed the music, and felt that new vistas were opening before him. Not only that: he carried out his own research in his special interests, tribal genealogies, speaking in Maori at the Matakana concert, he traced the relationship between certain Punaruku families and the Matakana people themselves, thus establishing kinship, the principle of cohesion in the Maori world. He became great friends of the elders of the places we visited; thus he cemented a close bond with our hosts. The children sensed his value to the group. Whereas they had previously looked upon him as a tedious old man, he now became highly respected. They saw that both in learning ability and in stamina he was more than a match for them; indeed in those few days he returned to wonderful health; and thus the tour had another valuable result—a closer bond between children and elders at Punaruku.

THE TRIP HOME On the afternoon of the ninth day of our tour, after an excellent hot dinner at the Community Centre, we went back home, where we arrived late in the evening and mostly asleep. By twos and threes, the children carried their bags out of the crowded bus and disappeared into the darkness, for the familiar walk home, over the beach, over the rocks, over the muddy paths. The lights at home were shining, the parents were waiting, a bit of a meal and then sleep, sleep, sleep.

CONCLUSION What were the results of the tour? The children, of course, have gained much new experience, many new facts which will help them in their education. But in teaching them in the first few weeks after the tour a far deeper effect on the pupils was also noticeable, a greater recptiveness to th things thy were told in class, a stronger belief that such things might be significant and real. It became easier to introduce new facts because the outside world is no longer as unknown as before; it is more easily possible for children to form a three-dimensional picture of it. Also, it is easier for them to react aesthetically to music, to drama, to prose and poetry. One notices an awakening of curiosity: cogent questions are now being asked; the teacher is being challenged to broaden his lessons. It begins to become clear that the school tour has been a successful technique in promoting rapid educational progress. It has gone to the root of the problem—cultural poverty, the lack of experience of the outside world; inborn intelligence has been mobilised and allowed to develop.