MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 September 1938, Page 10

MAORI MEMORIES

EDUCATIONAL IDEALS. (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”) Of the two contending Maori parties, Arama Karaka’s followers were Wesleyans, those under Katatore and Wiremu King! Episcopalians. The Rev. Turton thought his people were right and Bishop Selwyn believed in his. Kakaraka died of sheer anxiety in 1857. Every acre of land, hill, valley, bay or stream is a link in the chain of some ancestral tradition, and these Land Leaguers were more keenly interested than any Irish patriot in retaining the land of their family for twenty generations past. A diversion to this Maori trouble, came in the clash of creeds in regard to religious teaching in schools. In Otago there was no organised opposition; but in Nelson hundreds of Catholics protested against any system of teaching in schools which would give rise to sectarian strife.

Well educated pioneers found these primary schools useful for teaching their children what the Maoris called “read, rite and racon,” which was one version of the phrase “The Three R’s.” Quite a few Maori children, who had learned to read their own ideal writing in a week, merely by memorising the sound of their fourteen letters, left our schools, amazed at our complicated system. It was decided that a university such as Oxford or Cambridge would not only raise the status of the coming generation to that of the privileged class in England; but would attract many well to do families from Australia. The Press of this little colony had leading articles featuring the subject thus, “Two generations in a torpid climate changes its children to Sydney Corn Stalks” who are no match in intellect for men raised in a bracing climate like ours.” Their visions of University cities have only recently been realised; but the “Corn Stalks” still laugh at our precocity.