TRAINING OFFICIALS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 113, 10 February 1928, Page 8

TRAINING OFFICIALS

«. STUDY OF THE NATIVE Dominion Special Service. Christchurch, February 9. The view that, if the New Zealand Government had adopted a similar system of training for its officials in Samoa, as that which the Commonwealth Government >is now carrying out in connection with its mandated territory, the propaganda that has taken place against the Administration of Samoa might have been less successful, was expressed this morning by Dr. H. G. Denham, professor of chemistry at Canterbury College, who has just returned from Australia, where he attended the biennial conference of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science. One of the most marked advances that had recently been made in Australia as far as science was concerned, said Dr. Denham, was in the study of anthropology. A chair of anthropology had been established at Sydney Univerisity under Professor Radcliffe Brown, a world authority on the subject, and the effect of his work had already been shown in the changed attitude of the Commonwealth Government towards the government of its native races. Under the Australian Government’s recent scheme, an officer, after spending one year in the mandated territory, returned to Sydney in order to study the subject of anthropology in its various bearings before he takes up his study again amongst the native races, “Conceivably,” said Professor Denham, “if our officials in Samoa had a similar training into the various aspects of the native mind some of the present difficulties might not have arisen ”