THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JANUARY 9, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7936, 9 January 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JANUARY 9, 1906.

In another column of this morning's issue there appears an article relative to the business transacted by the Te Aute Students' Association at their recent congress at Eotorua, and oven a casual glance at that report will impress one with the admirable aim of the Association and the possibilities for good that their meetings represent. Whatever the whites oan do to uplift the native race, can always in turn oe excelled by the Maoris themselves did they but realise it. Ihe

calling into being of high influences, j aims and ambitions within themselves must inevitably represent a more potent factor for good than mere extraneous aid. And the reports of such a congress as that recently held at Rotorua by the Te Auto Students' Association seem to indicate pretty clearly that among oae section of the native race at any rate there has already taken root and is flourishing a true conception of what must prove strongest in their own uplifting. There is big hope bore, for may it not be anticipated that the New ; Thought which this represents will grow greater and wider and diffuse its influence among many other sections of the native race yet untouched of it? Just a list of the subjects discussed at the conference under notice is in itself food for happy astonishment, in that those subjects indicate with all clearness that the Association are quite alive to the dangers to which their race stands-opposed. At only one session of the congress papers were read and debates were conducted on such miscellaneous topics as the need for trained nurses iu Maori villages, the scarcity of Maori literature, the establishment of kindergarten schools among the natives, the preservation of the Maori architectural style, the teaching of Maori wood-carving, and the abolition of billiard rooms in the kiangas. On the same day it wa9 resolved by the conference that a Maori experimental farm should be established, while the possbilities of farming and fruit growing on native lands were discussed at length, and an elaborate exposition of the new Maori Laud Act was given by Mr Ngata for the benefit of his less experienced brethren. As a northern contemporary said in dealing with the matter the other day, it may not be possible to carry into effect all the resolutions adopted by the conference, or, at least, to achieve everything that the promoters of these gatherings desire; but no one can doubt thafc* the great majority of the proposals made at the Te Aute Conference tend in the right direction and thai; much permanent good must,result from these discussions, and the efforts to follow them out to a practical oouolusion.