Problem Of Educating The Natives.

A Senator Who Misunderstood.

[Letter to the Editor ]

During the few hours’ stay of the “Macdhui” in Brisbane on her last trip South, I was interviewed by a repre sentative of the “Brisbane Courier.”

That journal published on 8th March an accurate and faithful representation of my remarks regarding the present state of native life along the East coast of the Northern half of New Ireland. My views were the outcome of my recent research work in the en virons of Fisoa village.

The substance of these views is con tained in that section of the “Cou rier’s’’ report (“Island Natives —Euro pean Influences”) which reads: “There is urgent need for the institution of new enterprises of an educational na ture” —amongst the younger natives, of course. That is precisely what I said; it is precisely what I meant; it repre sents my considered conclusion after a study of the problem of the adjust ment and reconciliation of natives in culture-contact regions to the new and intrusive elements represented by European civilisation.

There was no opportunity for me to define in detail my ideas as to the nature of this suggested educational enterprise; but, in order that it should not be confused with, or interpreted in terms of, the existing practice of native education —largely modelled on the lines of European procedure and machinery—I deliberately stressed the idea of the enterprise being “new.”

Now, surely, anyone reading this phrase “new educational enterprise” would realise its implication—the re jection of any existing systems as in adequate for or unsuited to the task.

To my amazement, there appeared under the same heading, and imme diately beneath my statement (thus obviously bearing upon it) the views of a member of the Commonwealth Senate who had just completed a “round-trip survey” of the Territory.

This gentleman is reported as saying that “he thought it ridiculous to attempt to force European education on them,” i.e., the natives.

But who in the wide world men tioned European education? In his zeal to set the Territory right, the Senator, though probably actually hold ing views that resemble my own, re ferred to the suggestion of a ‘‘new educational enterprise” as “European education,” and hence “ridiculous.” It as ridiculous to force European educa tion on primitive peoples: as it is to superimpose Etiropean conceptions generally upon their native institu tions (housing, marriage and such things) except in isolated cases where the individual native has been with drawn from his primitive environment.

New educational enterprises, Senator!

Let us take a look at this subject of education. What is it? Is it not society’s machinery by which indi viduals are trained to ensure the future welfare of that society. For European civilisation, this machinery, good or bad, consists of schools of a particular type, with books and blackboards and teachers trained along the lines of society’s educational requirements.

For primitive peoples, as for all, the function of education remains the same, but it must be interpreted in the light of their particular economic needs and social background; and this does not necessarily, probably does not at all, mean the existence of schools as we know them. So that any new enter prise initiated and operated amongst the natives concerned, whether social, economic, vocational, or “intellectual" in nature, that assists towards their future social stability and economic de velopment is educational.

This is written, Mr. Editor, partly to justify myself and prevent misinterpre tation of my views amongst those to whom I am known in the Islands, and partly because it is not in the inter ests of the Territory when those who participate in its Parliamentary con trol apparently do not fully apprehend particular situations and their implica tions.

I am, etc.,

Wm. C. Groves.

University of Sydney, 30/3/1933.