of acting as a resolute body when this is called for; all these things prohibit a campaign of mass self-improvement. The Foundation, through its very structure, will admirably make up for these deficiences.

Apathy of Some Maori Parents One of the biggest problems facing the Foundation is the apathy of Maori parents. Most of them do not realize the intrinsic value of education, but are generally content to coast along from day to day, barely sparing a thought for those worries and anxieties which seem to plague most Europeans. Many have had little schooling themselves, and thus they can see little point in education. (The writer Dr Ausubel in his book ‘Maori Youth’ suggests that this attitude is comparable with European thinking of about two generations ago.) Many of those who have had some education, or who do spare a thought for its positive values, conceive of education as abstract, far off, almost magical, and attainable only by a few. The task of educating parents is a difficult but an essential one. It is especially important where the present generation of parents is concerned, for the parents of the future will, we trust, have benefited from the wider educational possibilities which are now open to them.

Less Capable of Helping Most parents are less capable of helping their children with educational and vocational guidance than are their Pakeha counterparts. Many possess little knowledge of the vast range of careers available to their children, and many have only romantic notions of careers for their children, ideas such as ‘doctor’ or ‘lawyer’, not fully realising how much is demanded of one for professions such as these. The Foundation is very conscious of this lack of knowledge and is doing much to spread information on the subject; for example, it has recently distributed a useful pamphlet which summarizes the most important facts and gives sources of further information. Maori parents are more inclined to adopt a passive, disinterested, ‘laissez faire’ attitude towards their children. Parents and children have not much mutual confidence in their ability to discuss and solve problems together. Children are generally left to their own resources where their personal problems or their future is concerned: Maori parents do much less than Pakehas to help their children along more secure paths, and they are not as influential as they could be in persuading tempted youngsters not to enter ‘big-money’ occupations. Many parents are reluctant to send their children on to higher education because of the costs involved; very often they do not realise that there are grants readily available, or how to apply for them. (In my own youth I received no benefit from scholarships because of parental ignorance.) The Foundation will prove its value if it can use its influence to persuade even a few parents to keep intending schoolleavers at school for a longer time. Another formidable obstacle is the fact that Maoris are comparatively retarded in their education. The report of the Commission on Education shows that on the average, our children are six to nine months behind Pakehas in their academic attainment; one realises the seriousness of this when one observes that the Maori youngster seldom catches up with his Pakeha schoolmates, so that few of them actually reach the final goals which they should reach.

Importance of Stimulating Literature Basically, there are two reasons for this retardation. To some extent it is due to Maori parents' starting their children's school careers later than do Pakehas. The other reason, a far more important one, is that Maori homes seldom contain much which is intellectually stimulating. In particular, most families possess little suitable literature through which the Maori child can broaden his general education to the extent that Pakeha children do. The Foundation, in co-operation with library services, is taking positive steps to assist in reaching more Maori homes with more and better literature. As a consequence of our inadequate education, the percentage of Maoris who are engaged in unskilled or semi-skilled work is far too large, and the percentage engaged in professional or ‘white-collar’ work is very much too small. This position is tending to create a degrading and unjust stereotype of Maoris in the eyes of many Pakehas.

Impossible to Accept This Position Our people should not, and cannot, be permitted to accept this level of mediocrity and dormancy; it would be intolerable for us to become little more than the ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’ in our country. Also, if things continue at their present rate there will be a surplus of unskilled workers, leading to more unemployment among them; this is especially evident when one considers that higher qualifications are increasingly being