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G. &OGBEN.J

83

U.— s.

such an idea altogether. Secondary education does not depend upon the specific subjects you teach, but upon the method of treatment of those subjects with a view to the development of observation and all the other powers of the human mind and body. There is first the stage that is the same for every citizen of the country—the primary stage. The next stage is the secondary stage. The subjects used are simply instruments. What you want to do is to give your pupils material and power to use the material. There is also the essential point in the question of Maori education. What you want to do is to give the material for thought that will put them in the most living connection with their future life —looking at that future life not merely from the point of view of bread-earning, but in all its aspects and interests. You want to develop the powers that they will need in order to carry out this object in regard to bread-earning and to the rest of their life. There is hardly a subject that you could name, if it is dealt with in the right way, but may be made a most important instrument in carrying out this aim; the most important instrument of all being the language they are going to think in. In other words, if you are going to get the Maori to live with the English, there is only one essential subject as a means of thought—that is, the English language. There are other subjects that are needed to bring them into contact with their outer life, and among those are the subjects of manual instruction. That is exactly the same problem that we have to take in the case of the Europeans; that is the way we shall have to teach in the schools. I hold that opinion only as one among many people, for the majority are still perhaps doubtful whether such a statement of the case is a true one. But I believe that in the next twenty-five years or so there will be a fundamental change in the direction I have indicated. It is important that the method of teaching should be such as to develop the intelligence and the other powers of the mind and body, and if your present subjects will not do this, or will not do it in the most profitable way, then you must take up some other subjects. Latin and similar subjects have in the past been treated by men of high intelligence and skill, and they used those subjects with more or less success as instruments for impressing their minds upon their pupils. You can get secondary education out of English just as well as you can out of any other language. And you can get secondary education out of technical and manual instruction just as much as you can out of any other scientific subjects. If you teach a man merely to dig you are teaching him only the manual part of the trade; but if you teach him to dig in a particular way, and why he should dig in that way, and therein teach him to think and observe, you train him intellectually just in the same kind of way as if he were being trained in the use of electricity. What we have been trying to get the Te Aute authorities to see —and I think they are beginning to see it now—is that by teaching the pupils carpentry and mensuration you can give them intellectual training in much the same way as by teaching Euclid and algebra. In fact, the English schools are now teaching geometry in a practical way; and I suggested to the Te Aute authorities in 1904 that they should treat the subject according to the method now being adopted in English schools —that is, that they should teach geometry first by actual experiment and measurement. I would continue geometry to a further stage in the case of the boys who gave great promise; but I would, right away, drop Latin, Euclid, and algebra out of the Te Aute School curriculum altogether. If the reform goes short of that, it is simply patchwork. English is a foreign language to the Native students at Te Aute, but as opposed to Latin, English is the language they will have to use. Now, with regard to the training they will get in mathematics. I should say teach them the arithmetic of common life, the arithmetic that would enable them to keep their accounts —for arithmetic includes the principles of book-keeping, and in the public-school syllabus a certain amount of book-keeping is set down as a part of arithmetic. The principles of book-keeping to be taught would include the keeping of a cash account. You would teach the boys to know what is meant by a simple balance-sheet, and what is meant by assets and liabilities.. They should, in short, know how to keep accounts of their own transactions. They should be taught to make such measurements as they will require in ordinary life. We want to teach the Maoris that amount of arithmetic, and to teach it practically and intelligently. We want to teach them geography—what they need—so as to be able to read English books intelligently, not necessarily teaching them minute topography, but such an amount of geography as will make them intelligent citizens. We want to teach them history so far as it is involved in the study of civics. By civics I mean the study of the circumstances of modern life, so as to lead them to think about the duties and rights of citizenship—elementary civics. We also want to teach them the elements of health. These subjects are essentials —English, aritmetic, geography, civics, and health. The last three subjects might also be made instruments for improving their English ; for in learning those things they are using their English all the time. There is one thing that may well be left to the trustees —namely, that a certain amount of time should be given up to religious instruction. The rest of the time would be given to subjects that should tiain their observation and give them manual dexterity, say to agricultural instruction, to woodwork, which I take as the representative of certain manual and technical subjects, and far and away the best representative, educationally, because the3 r are thereby taught drawing, practice in the use of tools, and the relation of the tools to the drawing; you also teach them at the same time what is practically useful—you teach them to build houses. I would give to English six hours a week; geography, civics, and health, four hours a week (that gives at least ten hours a week of practice in the use of English); arithmetic, including book-keeping, four hours a week; religious instruction, two hours a week; drill, one hour; agriculture and woodwork, eight hours a week. It is no use trying to do these manual subjects by halves. There is a certain object to be attained, and if you do not bring them up to the payingpoint, it is hardly worth while doing it at all. I recommend bringing it up to the paying-point. What is the paying-point? Experience has shown us what is the paying-point for Europeans, and taking the different circumstances you could not put it at less than from four to four hours and a half a week for agricultural instruction in the case of Maoris. With respect to agricultural instruction, I would recommend the programme set down here under the head of" Elementary Agriculture'" which is given as an optional subject in the Civil Service Junior Examination. That pro-

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