SHOCKING PARENTAL NEGLECT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 31 October 1907, Page 2

SHOCKING PARENTAL NEGLECT.

Per Press Association. Auckland, Last Niglit.

The Secretary for Education forwarded to the local Board of Education today an extract from a report by the Inspector of Native Schools on a recent visit paid by hiin to the Peria native school. This stated .that the Department would be surprised to learn that in the district named there were cases of children who had been living all their lives within reach of a Board school, now grown up to womanhood and unable to read or write, and that there were parents who could neither read nor write themselves who did not send their children to school at all regularly. It was pitiful to find that while the Maori children were learning to read and write, and few Maoris could not do this, there were people of our own race who looked down on the Maori and were yet inferior to him in this respect. "In the local store," continued the report, "the postmistress is unable to leave the office in charge of the European girl who acts as domestic because she (the latter) cannot read or write. She has to call in a Maori girl for the purpose. Neither the brother of the Ituropean girl nor the sister can read. They have been bred and born not far from the Fairburn school. The matter was referred to the school committees concerned and to the Truant Officer.