TAUMARUNUI SCHOOL.

King Country Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 97, 28 August 1908, Page 5

TAUMARUNUI SCHOOL.

At last week's meeting of the Auckland Board of Education a report on the Taumarunui School was presented by Mr Petrie, Chief Inspector. After describing 1 the situation of the building the report says : © In all there are 52 European pupils and 59 Maori pupils, total 111. The number of European children of the school age (5 to 15 years) in the district is about 109. This fact does not admit of question. It was 101 when the last petition presented to the board was made out. One or two families have since left the district, but others have come, leaving the total much the same. Few of these children are over 12 or 13 years of age, and there is a large preponderance of quite young ones. Only about half the European children of the district attend the present school. Of the others a few are placed at school elsewhere, at no small expense to their parents, but the great majority are not attending school at all. Adding the 100 European children ot the 59 Maori children now attending the Native school we have a total of say 160 children of school age. The present building with its low rooms does not afford sufficient accommodation for more than 120, and I do not think the rooms could, with due regard to sanitary considerations, accommodate more than 100 pupils. The European residents expressed the very strongest objection to their children attending a mixed school in which Maori children formed so large an element, at present a half of the total attendance, and in any circumstances a number not likely to be much under one-third of the roll number. .1 am of opinion that the education both of the Maori children and of the European children, would be most efficiently conducted if they were taught in separate schools. To have a third of any class composed of Maori children is an inevitable disadvantage to their European class mates, though I grant that it may be a distinct advantage to themselves. I visited the site of the proposed school for Rongoroa village. It is distant from the Native school somewhat more than half a mile probably nearly three-quarters of a mile. It is a piece of a high and dry terrace two acres in area, and quite level. Ido not know that it is very suitably placed, but no more suitable site could be readily found. In going to it pupils coming from the Native leaseholds in the township of Taumarunui proper, would have to cross the railway line. I need only add further that the railway authorities are about to build, as I was credibly informed, some 17 or 13 cottages for railway workers, and this addition to the population will mean a considerable addition to the number of school children in the district. Looking at the whole situation and bearing in mind that the present school could not, without great enlargement and indeed radical re-ad-justment, accommodate all the school children in the district, I think the erection of a separate school at Rongoroa desirable, and recommend that action be taken accordingly. I omitted to mention that a teachers' residence of six rooms is attached to the Native school, and that much of the Native school furniture is of an unsuitable character. Mr Edgecumbe advocated the erection of a separate school for white children, because the Maoris were not clean and likely to spread infectious diseases. He asserted that if separate schools were not provided a number of children would get no education at all. It was decided that before the Board assumed control of the building it should be inspected by their architect.