156 Transactions. — Miscdlaneoiis . 



Their numbers have diminished, and are diminishing at a rapid 

 rate, but in many respects their fine quahties remain. Their 

 desire for war has gone, and the force and energy so charac- 

 teristic of the older natives are only met with at rare intervals 

 among the young generation of men. The arts so common 

 among them, such as weaving, making nets, mats, &c., in the 

 case of the women, polishing greenstone and carving among 

 the men, will soon become things of the past. The younger 

 folk know as little of Maori art such as it was a quarter of a 

 century back as do the majority of the colonists ; and even the 

 ra^upo whare is giving way to the wooden house, although the 

 latter is less comfortable, and certainly less warm, than the 

 former. The native schools have greatly modified Maori 

 ideas, but unless they are made more adaptive than now to 

 the social and industrial needs of the race the work that is 

 being done in them so well can only end in making the ex- 

 tinction of the native easier and more rapid than it is. Let 

 the present condition — moral, social, mental, and industrial — 

 of the Maori race be fully understood in comparison with our 

 own. Their dwellings are not separated into rooms like those 

 of the Europeans ; the same room is occupied by all for 

 sleeping purposes at night and for conversation during the 

 day. Their habits are not regulated by sanitary laws, and 

 there is no authority regulating the arrangement of a pa, 

 the location of a whare, the disposal of offal, and the hundred 

 other minute but essential matters in connection with the 

 sanitation and general welfare of the people. Formerly the 

 chief of a pa occupied a position of authority, but such a 

 position is now merely nominal, especially in all that concerns 

 dwellings, food, and social intercourse. The fighting chief 

 has either disappeared or will soon do so, whilst the chief by 

 descent has no executive authority, and exercises but little 

 moral influence among those who come into daily contact 

 with some of the lowest forms of colonial life such as one sees 

 so often in the vicinity of native settlements. 



It cannot be denied that a good deal of information is 

 being obtained by the younger natives as to the way people 

 should live who aim to adopt European ways. In schools 

 like the native college at Te Ante the young people are 

 trained and educated in a manner which shows the capacity 

 of the native race to gather information on subjects like 

 history, geography, and grammar, and even in classics and 

 mathematics many of the youths and young men display 

 considerable capacity. But when they have conformed to 

 European ways for four or five years, and have acquired a fair 

 Englisii education, they go back to their own homes, where the 

 conditions of life are so different from the life and associations 

 of the school. What can such youths and young men do? 



