Native Education

Four Australian Delegates to Attend Hawaii Conference

A CTING for the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Australian Council for Educational Research has nominated the following delegates to represent Aus tralia at the conference on Anthropology and Native Education to be held at Honolulu, Hawaii, from June 30 to August 7: Professor A. P. Elkin, M.A., Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology in the University of Sydney, who is a recognised authority on the social life of the Australian aborigines.

Mr. F. E. Williams, M.A., B.Sc., Dip. Anthrop., Government Anthropologist of Papua, who has written extensively upon Papuan primitive cul tures, and the problems of native administration.

Mr. William C. Groves, 8.A., Dip. Ed., F.R.A.1., of Melbourne, a research fellow in social anthro pology under the Australian National Research Council, who has spent some years in educational work and in anthropological research in New Guinea, and who has just completed a book on edu cation and culture-contact in New Guinea.

Mr. Norman B. Tindale, B.Sc., ethnologist of the Adelaide Museum, who is well-known for his anthropological work amongst the aborigines of Central and Southern Australia.

Mr. Groves has arranged to leave Syd ney for Honolulu by the Aorangi on June 18, while Professor Elkin and Messrs.

Williams and Tindale will proceed by the Mariposa from Sydney on June 24. After the conference Mr. Tindale will sail for U.S.A. to do research work, under a grant from the Carnegie Foundation.

The Conference is being organised under the joint auspices of the Univer sities of Hawaii and Yale (U.S.A.), and is financed by the Carnegie Corporation.

It is generally regarded as the most im portant gathering of its kind yet held in

the Pacific region. The personnel of the various national delegations represent authorities on education, anthropology, and psychology from all parts of the Pacific Islands and littoral, where im portant developments in education have recently been carried out.

Comprehensive Syllabus

The syllabus is a very comprehensive one. Mr. Arthur Mayhew, Secretary to the Advisory Committee on Native Edu cation of the British Colonial Office, will deal with British colonial policy in its educational aspects. Representatives from Japan will outline the educational system among the natives of the Japanese mandated islands.

Some idea of the fundamental and im portant nature of the problems to be dealt with at the Conference is sug gested by the following titles selected from the syllabus*— National Native Educational Policies British, French, Netherlands, U.S.A., and Japan, with Australia and New Zealand in their Pacific Islands Territories dealt with separately; Assimilation versus Indigen ous Development in Education —probably the most important of all aspects of the Conference deliberations: Language Pro blems in Education, especially in New Guinea and the Melanesian Islands; Education and Native Social Systems; Health Education amongst Native Peoples; Educational Finance and Ad ministration.

As type-studies, detailed examination will be made of the systems of native education in the Gilbert and Ellice Is lands and Samoa. Special attention will be given to the complicated problem of education of immigrant groups, such as the Indians in Fiji; and to the work of the Medical School which has been estab lished at Suva to train native medical practitioners. The question of education

in relation to native morality will also be discussed.

Finally, it is hoped that, as a result of the Conference, a set of basic principles for native education generally will be formulated. With the weight of opinion of such a highly-select body of interna tional authorities behind it, representing

educationists, psychologists and anthro pologists, a body of principles so formu lated would provide valuable guidance for those territories, like New Guinea, where the perplexing problem of native education has yet to be successfully dealt with.

Protest From Queensland

The omission of Queensland represen tatives from the Australian delegation to the Conference drew a strong protest from the Director of Education (Mr. B.

McKenna).

He said that Queensland was always ruled out by the Carnegie Corporation, which w-as run in Australia from Mel bourne. Queensland would be represented if the Carnegie Corporation took into ac count that in Queensland more was known about native education than in any other Australian State. The Queensland De partment of Public Instruction advised the Commonwealth Government on native education in its territories, and supplied the teachers required.

Mr. W. E. J. Donovan* who is a clerk in the Fiji Treasury Department, returned to Suva by the Mariposa in May.