NATIVE SCHOOLS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2292, 10 September 1908, Page 2

NATIVE SCHOOLS.

THE ANNUAL REPORT

INSPECTOR BIRD’S REMARKS.

(Special to “Times.”) WELLINGTON, Sept. 9. The annual report ,on the Native schools of the Dominion was presented to the House to-day. The number of schools open at the end of last year was 99, as against 100 at the end of the previous year. The number of children, on th© roll of the schools at the end of 1907 was 4183, as against 4174 of the previous year. Several schools attained a very high percentage of attendance, one, indeed, reaching practically 100 per cent. The past 10 years show a very noteworthy increase in the number of children in Maori schools. At the end of 1897 there were 2864 children attending 77 schools. Since then there lias been an increase of 1319, or 46 per cent, while there are over 20 more schools. The net expenditure during the year was £31,492. The influence that Dame Fashion has upon the susceptible mind of the rising Maori generation is referred to by the Inspector of Native Schools (Mr. W. W. Bird) in his annual report. “Many complaints,” he says, “have been made by parents on account of the excessive demands mado by tli© school authorities in respect to clothing outfit, etc., and during the inspection visits some inquiries wore mado into the matter. Tile results of these inquiries show that the extravagance arises in the main from the boys and girls themselves, hut 1 cannot help thinking that their tendencies in this direction should bo forcibly checked by the school authorities, and that nothing but a simple style of dress of tho most- serviceable material should bo allowed. During one of my inspection journeys, a request came from a boy to his friends for a six-guinea tailor-made suit land some linen collars not less than 2Jin in width. I have seen a girl engaged in cutting flax dressed in a blue silk blouse which she had got while at school. On the day of the examination of the 6cliool, a cream violet dress, which had bceii made to order by a dressmaker, arrived for a girl whose parents live in tho gumfields district. This kind of thing is happily not common to all the schools, hut I am afraid that unless stern measures are taken to prevent it the cult will spread. Indeed, I hardly recognised in an over-dressed youn'c fop I recently met at a Maori ing an ex-pupil of a school where dungaree trousers and hare feet were once de rigueur.”