technical colleges; pre-training counts as part of the normal apprenticeship; the drop-out rate is lower than the N.Z. average and employers prefer Maori apprentices because they've plunged into the trade from the start—and don't ‘boil the billy’ for the first year or so. There are more applicants than training places available. Above all, the training is real, providing a real carpenter's wage for a carpenter's skill. In Australia we often delude ourselves and the Aborigines with our training schemes. In the Northern Territory, for example, we persist in the ‘training’ of Aborigines, with Grade III or IV education, as ‘bakers’, ‘butchers’, ‘carpenters’, etc., for periods of three weeks to six months. On completion, the trainee cannot get a job in the general community or, if he does get one, he is soon dismissed for lack of professional competence. When a ‘trained’ Aborigine ‘proves’ unequal to the job, the stereotype of his uneducability, inferiority and stupidity is reinforced. The Maori schemes require a minimum of three years' secondary schooling. Despite low higher-form numbers, there are still enough Aborigines with three years' secondary to warrant a genuine trade-training scheme—if only to demonstrate, as in the Maori case, that there is something worthwhile to do after school. As Leonard Radic pointed out in his recent ‘Age’ series, Aborigines have an horizon of unskilled labouring and seasonal fruit-picking in southern Australia, and semi-skilled or skilled pastoral work in northern Australia, but skill as yet unrewarded. Finally, Maori education has the undoubted benefit of a national education foundation. The M.E.F. provides grants for primary, secondary, vocational and university students (in 1966, 1,125 grants to the value of $138,064); it subsidises new play centres and fosters their development; it acts as adviser and co-ordinator to other departments; it provides university liaison officers to assist Maori students, and it undertakes vital research into the problems of Maori pupils. At an Aboriginal education seminar last year, we were told by a senior Aboriginal administration officer that the first Aboriginal matriculant in the Northern Territory could not be expected before 1975. Given that the Commonwealth started formal education for Aborigines in 1950 — and the missions many years before then — we are left with two possible speculations: either Aborigines are biologically unique and stereotype prejudices are indeed scientific facts — or the Aboriginal education machine needs a major overhaul and some new parts. Mr W. C. Wentworth, Minister in Charge of Aboriginal Affairs, is favouring the latter at present, judging from his appeal last week for a self-help and community development approach — an approach which has provided an educational and economic return for both Maori and Pakeha in New Zealand.

Te Rangi Hiroa Fund In recognition of the scholarship of the late Sir Peter Buck (Te Rangi Hiroa) and the inspiration he has given to later studies of Pacific History, a group of interested persons has decided to establish a fund to be known as the ‘Te Rangi Hiroa Fund for the Study of Pacific History’. Contributions to the fund are now being sought. Donations and pledges come to over $2,000 but a considerably larger sum will be necessary if the capital is to be preserved and only the income from it used for awards. Awards will be of four types: 1. An annual prize for the best essay on any aspect of Pacific history by an undergraduate student at any university in the South Pacific Islands. 2. An annual award for the best essay on any aspect of Pacific history by a student at any teachers' training college or other institution of tertiary education within the South Pacific Commission area. 3. An anual prize for the best essay on any aspect of the history of the Pacific Islands by an undergraduate student of any university outside the Pacific Islands. All essays would be presented in English or French, and awards will be first given in November, 1969. 4. Subject to sufficient funds being received, small scholarships will be available continued at foot of page 55