G.—.5

72

[b , . koheke.

that is what I believe we call the workshop at Te Aute. Since I left Te Aute that workshop has been turned into a dormitory, so that there is now no technical education being taught there. The technical education that was said to have been taught then is not what I understand technical education to be. I have been attending a wood class in a technical school, and what I learn in a proper technical school is a very different thing from what I learned at Te Aute. lam somewhat emphatic in saying that the boys at Te Aute should be graded. In special cases the students should receive secondary education. The bulk of the boys should be drafted on to branches that i-ney are fitted for. In a sense Te Aute has been a disappointment to the Maori people who have sent boys there—a disappointment in this way, that when the parents sent their boys to Te Aute they expected their sons to be lawyers, doctors, judges, engineers, and professional men. I think they wanted their boys to be specially lawyers. Time has proved that going to Te Aute does not necessarily make a boy a lawyer or a doctor. I think my own people, the Ngatiporou, have learned a lesson, not from an example they have, but they have learned that the best thing to put boys to is farming. The best lawyer they have had threw up the profession practically, and that opened their eyes and made them change their minds probably. The turning of the Maori race into farmers would be, as I have said, the saving of the people, and it would materially add to the prosperity of " God's own country." I think that every facility should be given to Maori boys to make them good farmers. Another reason why an industrial department should be added to the College is that, even if they had a separate industrial school or college elsewhere, Te Aute, having made a reputation, would always draw boys; they would always go there. It would only take them a year or two at Te Aute to find out that they were not fitted for secondary education. To learn to be carpenters, blacksmiths, and saddlers would be a useful thing for the young Maoris; but Ido not think it is very necessary, because one can always get a lot of these tradesmen. Of course it is useful knowledge. I am learning carpentering, not because I intend tc go into the trade, but it is useful, and it is a pleasant pastime. The matriculation standard must certainly tend to unfit a boy for ordinary trade work, or it will make such work distasteful to him; and it may make him become lazy. Two of my brothers when they left Te Aute were decidedly lazy; they did not like to work at all. It may, perhaps, have been constitutional, or it may have been helped on by Te Aute—this lazy propensity— but since they have been at home they have all been working on the land, and they have become good workers; the fit of laziness has practically gone. So I have come to the conclusion that it was through going to Te Aute that they become lazy. People have at times severely criticized secondary education at Te Aute, and they have come to the conclusion that so many boys have turned out failures simply because of receiving secondary education at Te Aute. I used to share that opinion fairly strongly. I believe that secondary education is responsible to a certain extent, though not so much as some people would make it out to be. I have seen that boys from other schools—for instance, St. Stephen's Industrial School—have turned out to be failures, and it was not through secondary education. Even boys from the village schools have turned out to be failures, and boys who were at Te Aute only for a year or two, who did not reach the higher classes, have turned out to be failures. So I have come to the conclusion that it is rather the social conditions in the settlements or the influences of the towns that have helped to make these boys failures, They got into .extravagant habits in the towns. With respect to gambling, that goes right through the race, and lam inclined to think that the old people are the worst gamblers. As far as I know, Te Aute boys are not leaders in that respect. Some of them gamble, but not to an extent that T have seen some old people gamble. No doubt it may be said that the greatest successes turned out at Te Aute are the boys who were leaders at school scholastically—the best-educated boys. In every case where a Maori boy has been to the University I must say he has been a success, and you generally find past Te Aute boys leading any great movement amongst the Maoris socially or industrially. You will usually find in such cases a Te Aute boy who has received a very good education there or at some outside college. I think that Te Aute is equal to the best secondary European school —as far as the materials go —with respect to learning, discipline, conduct, and tone. Many boys have learned there to be systematic, neat, clean, and punctual. Lately, however, I have noticed the boys who go to Te Aute, both at present and for a few years back, rather given to extravagant dressing. I am not the only one who has expressed that opinion. When I was at school at Te Aute a boy who had a tailor-made suit would be looked upon as a sort of curiosity, and I am inclined to think that a boy who wears a ready-made suit on Sundays at present may be looked upon as a curiosity. I cannot say that the authorities are to blame for this spirit of extravagance at the school, though they may be blamed indirectly. Te Aute is becoming too expensive for a boy of average means to go to. In our time it was considered quite sufficient for a parent to devote £10 a to clothing a boy at school; and that £10 would pay his passage to school and. back home again. But now I think it costs a boy about £30, more or less. Another thing I find fault with at Te Aute is charging a boy for his school-books. In my time all school material was free; but they have changed that. I think the reason is to punish the boys or to make them look after their books better, because if they had books provided for them they would not look after them so well. That may sound all right; but when you look at it more closely you find that it is an injustice to the parents of the boy. I think the school should provide the books, because the masters of the school are there to look after the books. If the parents are to buy the books they are not at the school to look after the books. So, instead of punishing the boys, it is the parents who are punished. As we all know, boys, as a rule, are not very particular about the care of school-books. Not only that, but when a boy passes from one standard to another the old books are practically of no use'to him, and probably he throws them away, or gives them away to his friends, whereas if the school provided the books they could keep the books and subsequently utilise them for other studenls. It has been said that Te Aute is only a training-ground for parsons—that it only teaches boys how to go to heaven. I am in a position to express an opinion on that question, because I am a tutor in the Theological College at Gjsborne. As far as I know, there are about half a dozen Te Aute boys who are ordained clergy.