Hill. — 0)i the Maoris To-day and To-morrow. 157 



They are already at their meridian in social and intellectual 

 development, and their setting when they return home is rapid 

 and effective. I have no doubt whatever that every young 

 person when quitting a native school would infinitely prefer to 

 live the life such as he has lived during his school career ; but 

 where is the outlet, and what can such young people do to 

 modify the conditions of the moral, social, and industrial life 

 in the native settlements to which they severally belong? 

 From personal experience I am aware that many young 

 natives return to their homes from the boarding - schools 

 imbued with the desire strong upon them to live good lives, 

 and to modify in some way the unsatisfactory conditions 

 which they know exist either in their own home or in the pa ; 

 but a few days' residence suffices to convince them of the 

 hopelessness of their efforts. They cannot change the habits 

 of their elders, and they perforce must conform to the ways of 

 the whare ; and the ways of the whare are certainly not the 

 ways of native boarding-schools like those of Te Aute, Huka- 

 rere, and the Convent. Nor should it be forgotten that native 

 settlements differ entirely from what colonists find existing in 

 the smaller villages among their own people. The village is 

 usually in touch with the nearest market town, and every 

 colonial child, as he or she ages into youth and manhood or 

 womanhood, holds the power within himself to win his way 

 into the larger centres of population, where mind, skill, and 

 industry are always in demand. The natives — young men and 

 young women alike — return home from school at the close of 

 their school career, and they are isolated entities among their 

 fellow - natives in scholarship and general knowledge ; but 

 what is the value of all their scholarship at a time so im- 

 portant ? For their knowledge there is not the slightest de- 

 mand among the native people, and, just at a time when emu- 

 lation should be fostered by expectations of advancement, there 

 is nothing in the Maori life by which such emulation can be 

 encouraged, for they are unable to advance a single step in a 

 society which is without government or organization, and the 

 result is indifference and disappointment. It is at this stage 

 in the career of the young natives where the study of this 

 great social question as it affects the native race should begin. 

 The young colonist, when he quits the school to work in the 

 wider school of the world, has a thousand places of honour 

 wdthin his grasp should he possess capacity and ambition ; but 

 the Maori, on leaving school, however capable he may be, 

 passes into a community where organization is dead, and in 

 which there is not a single place of trust open to him. Is it 

 any wonder that intelligent natives, fresh from school, soon 

 grow indifferent, and inquire one of another as to the use of 

 the training they have undergone? They observe colonists 



