G.—s.

102

[h. b. kirk

25. Cooking, housekeeping, and the care of children?— Yes, undoubtedly cooking. But, in regard to cooking, I do not think it is necessary to teach them up-to-date gas-range or even up-to-date kitchen-range methods. I think the girls should be taught simple cookery—even campoven cookery. Ido not think cookery is a very important subject to teach the Maori girls, because my experience has been that the Maoris are generally good cooks. I think that what is wanted in that direction is the teaching of cleanliness in cooking. 26. Mr. Hogg.] You have visited Te Aute College on several occasions?— Yes. 27. And you have inspected the classes there?— Yes. 28. I suppose you have acquainted yourself with the kind of education that is given in the College ?—Unless it has been modified in the last four years, yes. 29. Had you to report to your Department on the result of your inspection?— Yes, always. 30. Were you satisfied yourself with the kind of education that is given to these Maori boys? —With the exceptions I have already indicated, I was satisfied. I. was satisfied that the work which was clone was thoroughly good, but I was not satisfied the lines were the best lines. 31. Did you approve of these lines?—At one time 1 did; latterly I did not, I changed my own views in the course of my connection with the Department. 32. Had the school been under your own control,, for instance, would you have carried it on in the same way ?—No, I should not. 33. What I should like to get from you is your ideas as to how the school should be carried on in order to improve these Maori boys to the greatest extent?—To commence at what I consider the most important point, I should make no change in regard to the morale of the school. In regard to all points of training that would tend to make men in the highest sense, there is nothing to be desired at Te Aute as I knew it. In regard to the side of the training with which the Education Department is specially concerned, I should, as I have already said, cut down the head of the school very much. I should make the teaching in the lower part of the school more practical as far as I could do so, especially the teaching of English and in elementary business training, whicii would be rather'a matter of the keeping and casting of accounts. I should pay more attention to the training of a boy so that he could check his own account at the store, or could keep his own account as a storekeeper, than to preparing him for any set standard of education. Of course, I know I was instrumental in applying the standards, and, in the main, 1 approve of them; but, at the same time, I should like to have had much more attention paid to the things which would crop up day after day in a Maori boy's life. Particularly in regard to English, I should like a considerable extension of the scheme whicii is being followed in the village schools; I refer to conversational English. 34. Then, do you think it would be an improvement if the education in the Te Aute College were brought on parallel lines with the education in the ordinary primary schools ?—No, I do not think so. 35. You think a special form of education is necessary for the Maoris? —Yes, and I think it will be so for some time, too. I think the conditions under which the Maori is going to live are different to the conditions under which we are going to live for the next generation or two. 36. Would you include a scientific training in place of the teaching of dead languages, and Such things as Euclid and geometry?-—Except that I should have all training on scientific lines, I should not include what we call in our schools elementary science, nature study, &o. I should like to see the boys taught to observe, although the Maori boys are generally keener to observe the things we are teaching in our schools than we are. A Maori boy, and Europeans boys trained amongst the Maoris, would know the bush, for example, in a way that our boys do not know it. So far as training to observe is concerned, the Maori scarcely needs it at the present time. His powers of observation are sufficiently trained, and will be for some little time. 37. You have noticed that the Maori youths at the College are rather a fine stamp of athletics? —Yes. 38. Are they correspondingly, in your opinion, intellectually gifted? Are their intellectual faculties capable of being highly developed?— Yes, 1 think so. When I have said that my view is that the Maori should not be made a scholar, it is not that we cannot make a scholar of him. We can; but I think the life he has got to lead will be most useful to his people if we refrain. 39. Are you of opinion that if they were made better acquainted with the English language and were taught elocution, their powers would be developed in the necessary direction ?—I do not think we can give too much time to making them well acquainted with English. I think that is the most important thing we can take in hand. 40. I presume it takes years to make them thorough English scholars? —Yes; but the number of years will be less as time goes on, as English becomes more the language of the home. 41. Would you be in favour of teaching them to translate their own language into English and English into Maori ?—ln most cases I think it is not necessary. I should not be in favour of taking translation as a means of teaching English. 42. Then, do you not think it is necesary to teach Maori youths to read and write in their mother-tongue, as well as in the English language?—l have not found the Maori at a loss to read and write in his mother-tongue. Even a Maori with no knowledge of English can read and write Maori. I think the reason is that the men who fixed the alphabet for the Maori fixed it in such a, rational fashion that the vowels have their proper sound, and all through the alphabet they had such a keen sense of the value to be attached to letters that to write the Maori language is not by any means a difficult thing to the Maori. 43. I think you have said you would be strongly in favour of giving them an education in agricultural science and in useful arts?— Yes, to a limited extent. I should try to train a boy in a Maori school on general lines, so that he could, if occasion arose, specialise either as a European or as a Maori, and, as a Maori specialist, as a farmer or artisan.