J. THORNTON.]

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to engage in it. As an illustration, there would only have been two boys this year, and I have got these boys into the higher division not because I think they have any chance of passing, but for special reasons in each case. In one case I want to keep on to the boy because I hope to send him on to Te Rau, and in the other case the boy is very anxious to pass the matriculation. lam perfectly certain he will not pass it, but the extra year will do him no harm. 167. Is there any possibility of introducing, say, poultry-farming and fruit-culture on a small scale at Te Aute?—l have had no experience in such things. I can only speak within the limits of my own knowledge. Horticulture we have in the sense of flower and vegetable gardening. 168. You had it on an extended scale some years ago, when the boys kept their own strawberry gardens? —That was voluntary; it was not part of the time-table work. 169. I gather from your replies to some of these questions that, in your opinion, it would be best to have a separate institution ?—I do. 170. That on the whole it would be much better to have a separate system where technical education could be taught thoroughly, and agricultural training, than to attempt to graft this on the present Te Aute system? —I am very strongly of that opinion, and always have been. I think in the case of the Lincoln College we have a striking example of it. The boys in the secondary schools of the colony, if they have any desire for agricultural training, do not get that instruction in these schools, but are sent to Lincoln College. 171. If that was the case at Te Aute you could specialise in technical education? —That is so. 172. I suppose during the time you have been headmaster of the school you have had yourself ideas as to the purposes of such an institution as Te Aute with regard to the Maori people?— Yes, I have. 173. Will you state briefly to the Commission what they are? —Speaking briefly, my idea of the education at Te Aute is to form the character of the students in such a way as to influence the whole Maori people. 174. How far have these objects been carried out? —I think I may say that Te Aute has influenced the Maori people by its teaching, and by the young men who have passed out from it and mixed up in Maori society. I think we have succeeded to a certain extent in educating Maori public opinion to a higher standard, and that the Maori is a better man to-day than he was twenty years ago in consequence. 175. That would apply to St. Stephen's as well? —Certainly; and to Hukarere. 176. Would you regard this Te Aute Students' Association as a direct outcome of the Te Aute tiaining?—l should, most certainly. 177. It is an embodiment, I believe, of your own purpose with regard to the Maori people?—So far as I am connected with it, it is, certainly. 178. Primarily the object of the association, as stated in the first paragraph of the constitution, was to organize the material turned out from Te Aute, and to carry on the work begun at Te Aute? —That is so. 179. I do not know what your view is as to the influence you expect the Te Aute fellows .to have amongst their people, but I have often expressed it at conferences, and I would like you to indorse it: they are to be regarded as so much manure, to put it very broadly; you may have apparent failures, but still you are laying down the foundation for considerable improvements in the second generation ?—I am quite prepared to indorse that. I expressed much the same view this morning when I said I wanted the Te Aute boys to be a leaven to leaven the whole lump. In regard to apparent failures, I should like to say in a great many instances the failures are more apparent than real. We have known many cases of boys who have left Te Aute breaking through all restraints for the first year or so, and we have thought they were going to the bad. Then in the course of a year or two we find them pulling up, and they go in the right direction and live useful lives. 180. Mr. Eliott.] Do you think it is desirable to have a mixed school of English boys and Maori boys ?—I should say there is no objection to mixing up Europeans with. Maoris in a certain proportion, but I should not like to see it done to the exclusion of the Maoris from the benefits of their trust. 181. You think Maoris should have preference?—l do. 182. It is the acquirement of English manners, ways, and idioms facilitated by the presence of English boys amongst the Maoris? —I think there is a little benefit; they each learn from the other. 183. I take it that the desire is to educate the Maori boy to the English way, and not to educate the English boy to the Maori way? —Certainly not. 184. Do you think the presence of the English boy with the Maori boy is elevating and improving?— Yes, to a certain extent. 185. And is the teaching of the English language, which is really the paramount thing, facilitated? —I would not say the Maori boys improve much in English from the English boys. They talk English amongst themselves —in fact, so much so ofMate that we have had to give them leave to talk Maori. 186. Is that desirable? —It is desirable in this way: that we do not want them to go back to their own people to be told, "You have learned English and forgotten your own tongue." 187. Ido not think the Maori will lose his mother tongue very easily in New Zealand?— They are losing it. 188. You have already said you are in favour of technical education, providing you had the facilities for imparting it ?—Technical education to the extent we have argued for. 189. Then, the reference in the Commission to the inadequate provision hitherto made would arise principally from the want of equipment and teaching staff?— Yes. Of course, the introduction of technical work would imply that, . - ■ '

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