Notes
Using much never-before-published material, Helen May tells the story of ‘beginning school’ for both Maori and Pakeha children in New Zealand in the nineteenth century. The story is set against changing backdrops : from early Maori-Pakeha engagement and a mass migration of European settlers form the ‘old world’ to the ‘new world’, to consequent colonisation and loss of land in a changing world for Maori and the Pakeha-led construction of a ‘new’ nation. The focus on the youngest children at school provides a fresh window for considering missionary intentions and the subsequent politics of colonisation, as well as the idea of public schooling and the beginnings of a schooling system in the colony.Contents
Contents : acknowledgements; dedication; introduction; Chapter One : Missionary infant schools for Maori children 1830s-1840s - gather the children - Paihia Infant School - European founders - the best soil for cultivation - Tini : a lady of considerable note - an alphabet on her coffin - weaned from the kaingas; Chapter Two : Early schooling for the first settlers 1840s-1850s - new world possibilities - shipboard learning - first school fragments - Dame school traditions - church interests - Taranaki’s Happy Colony; Chapter Three : Provincial priorities 1850s-1870s - statistical clues - variety of ventures - provincial patterns - inspectors’ interests - speedy assimilation - introducing standards; Chapter Four : Infancy of a national education system 1870s-1900s - infant space - examining infants - remote experience - tasks of teaching - Kindergarten system - Mt Cook Infant School - Native School primers - determining discipline - Century’s end and new beginnings; index; permission and acknowledgements;
