A PITIFUL POSITION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2373, 14 December 1908, Page 2

A PITIFUL POSITION.

ISOLATED AND ILLITERATE.

A MOTHEB’S DISTBESSING

LETTER

A wail from the backblocks readied tbo Auckland Education Board last Wednesday. A motlier, writing from an isolated 1 place in the King Country, thus expresses herself :—"I have three children, the eldest is twenty-one, a son, the next is a daughter of eighteen, and! the third .'a boy of seventeen. The eldest left school after passing the fourth standard, and the youngest just after he had passed into the first. The girl has never been at any school through being weakly. Some years ago we came into the King Country, and though the.mupe were marked showing roads and schools, the roads are still only tracks and no schools exist! Meanwhile roy children have grown into men and women with scarce any education. Could you tell me the best thing to do for them before it becomes too late? If I could get a teacher in. the house it would be a great improvement. They could cease work earlier in the evenings and nerhaps sometimes In the afternoons. The eldest boy lias improved himself wonderfully., but he has not the patience to teach the vounger ones. I have taught them all that I can and have bought them hooks, hut I am too tired at night to do much. This is the nenalty we have to pay for coming so far back to make a home. I don’t understand Mr. Fowlds. A traveling teacher would be better than none. People of bush sections are never well enough off to send their children outside. It grieves me to. see my children with so little education to go through life, when the children near the cities have every advantage at our expense. I am sure that in the future they will blame their father and myself for bringing them so far away from all comfort and education that nothing will make up for.” After a brief discussion it was decided to forward the letter to the Minister for Education.