THE PHYSICAL EDUCATION OF CHILDREN.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume I, Issue 4, 15 May 1861, Page 8

THE PHYSICAL EDUCATION OF CHILDREN.

To Parents, — Here you are ever inquiring of us the reason why your children die off. You observe the children of the Pakeha, that they are many, and increasing, but as for your

own, they are being lost in death. We Lave heard the word of some mistaken men, asserting that they are destroyed by the maori god, that is, by the evil spirit, and by witchcraft. Others say that it is the arrival of the Pakeha in this land, which is causing your children to melt away, aid that hence you are grieved with us. Now, listen! This opinion and this style of talking is wrong, and you must give it up. This affliction which causes your darkness arises neither from the Foreigner nor the maori-god, but is occasioned by yourselves, the Parents. It is from your own mistakes, and foolish dealing and idleness towards your children : not being cautious to avoid such evils as engender disease. Friends! Let your thoughts be straight, even at the present whilst your children are being spared to you. Do not destroy them, but save them, that they may live. The letter of the aged minister inserted below —read: and all his good counsel, accept for adoption amongst yourselves.—Editor,

(From the "Baeata" Friends! Men of New Zealand ! I have a word lo say to you about your children. Our children have lo inhabit the world after we are gone. We are going to another world, to another kamga. After us, our children will go lo the same place : we shall see our children there, and they will see us. Il is right thai we should go first, and our children follow after. But, according to my observation, your children are already going. The children are slipping away first. They are hastily carried off by death, ani gathered away into the other world. Now, this is not right. Where shall we find men to inhabit the earth? The children having gone, and we, old folks having followed after—where shall we find men for this, our world? Perhaps it is because of tbe wrong-doings of the Parents, that God takes away the children, that they may the more quickly escape lo a better place. And when parents reach that world, the children will turn round and judge ihem. The children will judge the parents, because of the improper manner, in which they have brought them up. The children will sit in the kingdom of God, and the Parents will be cast into outer darkness. Hence, I say, let us think the matter over carefully, and search out some good plan whereby our children may be preserved.

Look here,—one good thing for the children refers to the mother. Let the mother's food be good, because she has to nurse the child. If the mother eat improper food, the evil of it will affect the child, which may be either internally destroyed, or still-born. \ . One thing— let not the mother be killed with heavy work. I have seen a pregnant woman, carrying potatoes, firewood, and heavy burdens. What are the husbands doing, that they do not take up these heavy pikaus ? Do you not observe the Pakchas? The men take the heavy work, and leave the light to the women. Work is good, and is not to be found fault with. Jt is not a good thing for women to be idle, but let the work be light and easy, lest the child be internally injured, or brought forth still-born. 2. Now, when the child is born, let it have suitable clothes! let them be soft, warm, and clean. Natives are not careful about this. The child is wrapped up in a nasty cloth, dirty or wet,—and so left in that condition. The child is wrapped up in a rough blanket. On the contrary, look at the Pakeha, and at his caution about his children. His children's clothes are always soft, and good, and clean and dry. When they are wet, they are taken off, when they are dirty they are taken off, when they are torn they are taken off; the children are dressed in dry and suitable clothing, and the dirtv things are washed out. 3. Another good thing for children is Washing. The Pakehas plan with his children, is to put them into a tub of warm water, morning and evening, and to wash the body all over with soap: that being done, it is dried with a nice towel, and •rubbed with the hand that it may be thoroughly dry, and the body quite warm: that, clean clothes are put upon it. 4. Again, about the Bed. Have a suitable bed for the child: let it not sleep on the -earth, but on a bedstead, lest it be injured by the moisture of the ground. Let it not sleep between the parents, lest it be injured by the heat: but let the parents and the child sleep in separate beds. Let it have a night-gown, and not be laid naked in the blankets, lest it should be hurt with the roughness. Let different clothes be used for day time, and night, with sheets and blankets. But be very careful to have them quite dry. The bed also must be very dry. Take ihem often outside that the sun may shine upon them, and the wind blow upon them, that the bed and blankets and sheets may be quite dry. And when the sheets are dirty, let clean ones be put on, and the soiled

ones washed. Also be careful lest the sleep be disturbed, and the child injured by lice and fleas. Do not sleep with a fire in the house, because or the charcoal. 5. Again, in reference to the House. The house of the rnaori is a bad one, a house where all sleep together, a little house, a smoky house, an unventilated house, an offensive house. If the older people are affected by the dampness of the ground, bv the smoke of the fire, by the stench of the" cinders, and by the closeness of so many sleeping together, how will it be with the children? According to my thought, children can never be healthy in a house like that. The earth-covered house is also bad in an equal degree. Rather, the houses of the Pakeha, great and high -with many rooms also, so as not to sleep all together. One room for the parents, and another for the children. A separate house for this man and his children, and a separate house for that man and his children. With beds also, that they may not lie together, or on the ground. When will the maories do like this? Not observing how the Pakehas children increase, and are healthy: —the world is full of the children of the Pakeha, but as to maori children, where are they ? 6. Again, about Nursmg, I observe the maories carrying their children on their backs: they carry them naked: the parent is bare, and the child is bare, with only a rough blanket to cover over both. The dirt of the parents'skin, and the dirt of the child's skin, and the perspiration arising from both. And the blanket rubbing a ,ainst the child, and the sun and the wind striking its head. Can the child be preserved after that fashion? According to my opinion, it cannot be saved. The diseases of the father fly to the child, and it dies. Look at the Pakehu'o mode of nursing his children : it is not at all like that: the child is carried in the arms and with its clothes on. 7. Again, about the Food. Let the mother's food be good. If the mother eat unwholesome food, it flies to the milk: and when the child sucks, it becomes affected in the bowels. Potatoes are good food for the mother, but they must be eaten with salt. Much salt is eaten by the Pakeha. The Pakeha mixes salt with all his food : but as for the Maori, he uses no salt at all, and this perhaps is the cause of some of those diseases > which afflict both parents and children. Hence 1 advise the mother to take salt with her potatoes, as also with pork, and fish, and flour: let it all be eaten with salt. Another kind of suitable food for the mother, is lea,

mixed with milk, and a little sugar. As for tobacco, don't touch it, that is bad food for the mother: let that be left for the old men and old women. What, would you have a women to smoke whilst she is suckling her child? Don't do such a thing don't do it. Putrid corn also, and spirituous liquors, must be given up entirely, together with all kinds of putrid food, they must be avoided. Now. if the mother's milk falls short, the child must be fed with other good food But what good food has the maori for a child so circumstanced? None. Neither potatoes, nor kumaras, nor fish, nor pork is good for it. Rather let it be cow's milk, to supplement the m«lk of its mother : let it be mixed with a small quantity of flour, or arrowroot, and let it be thin. Then boil it well, and mix it with a little sugar. But when the child has grown-up a little, then let it be fed with stronger food, and tried with a little flour, i.e. Pakeha bread: also with some potatoes, and a little pork, and fish, but all to be eaten with salt. Let the maori be very cautious about the food for his children, after being weaned from the breast. In my opinion, this is the reason why so very many of the maori children die: because of the want of suitable food for them after the time of weaning. Think much about this: for I tell you that this is the period during which most of the maori children die, it is their being weaned from their mother's milk, and no food, equally nutritious being supplied in its place. 8. Perhaps men will say to me, "The maori has no money for the purchase of that food, and soap, and clothes, and bedding and all the rest: the maori has no money with which to buy them." Lock here, thai statement is false. The maori possesses great wealth. It is because he wastes his riches, and because he has no love for his children, that he cannot supply them with suitable things. And hence I say that the parents will be judged by the children, when they reach the other world: i. e., because of wasting their properly, so that nothing is left with which to buy things for their children. Great is the waste of money over the dead. Five and Six Pounds for a Coffin I How many more Pounds will you give for a coffin? Much treasure is buried in the grave: much money is spent in food for the mourner: great is the sin of this common waste of money, and great is God's anger because of it. The money is wasted over the dead, and there is nothing left for the living children. What do you think? Will the corpse turn to that money, and to those trea-

sures? And will ii lie warm in the grave, in consequence of its expensive coffin ? On the contrary, it will probably rise up in the day of judgment, and condemn you, for having wasted your treasure in the grave, and for having stelen your children's 'money. Great also is the waste of money in the purchase of fine clothes for the adults, and in tobacco and spirits and horses, and many other things. And so the corpse is to be dressed up like a King; and the adult must be like a king in Ihe finery and abundance of his clothing:—but as for the children, thev may be lost in dirt, in cold, in hunger and in poverty. Perhaps the Native says, <«He has no cow from which to supply his children with milk." Indeed! And why has he not? Why ? The land is wasted over the maori, who does not provide a cow, to give milk for his children ! He has much land for a cattle-run, and much land for growing food, and yet he cannot fence in a farm, ou which to run a cow for his children. Parents! Listen to my affectionate advice, and leave off these wrong doings lest all your children be destroyed. But rather adopt the counsel I have given vou, that your offspring may be saved, both in this world, and the next. J. Wiiiteley, Taranaki. Missionary