PART 71, immeasurably poorer in this world’s goods and much more likely to starve and to suffer than the native of Africa. Without very much use of the method of peaceful picketing and without any elaborate organisation natives in the sphere of labour are able to make their demands known and to have their requirements met. And by this same power they are able to resist passively any innovation which is premature. All this makes it a difficult matter to register progress if it is not welcomed by the native, so that those who would ameliorate the condition of the native have to proceed gently and warily lest they should offend to the extent of rendering ineffective any movement they wish to foster. We therefore have to take a median line, we have to give the native a return step by step for every effort he makes. The chiefest demand is for education and for medical facilities, the root requirement is food varied and plenty of it. As individuals their every day life outside a reserve is an education, but in many instances it makes no impression and general observation leads one to the conclusion that only a small proportion of native peoples are capable of being fully taught. Whether the proportion will show an increase in subsequent generations is a matter for conjecture. It may be said that the main mass of natives in reserves requires mass treatment and mass control primarily. We therefore may proceed with our plans for the improve- ment of their possessions recollecting that we are dealing with a people, the individuals of which are very much alike. General instructions then, aiming at betterment in one, two or three directions are a possible means, and have been. and should be applied in the future. There is a good case for education through the medium of schools. Sufficient evidence and experience has been gained to lead the depart- ment to incline towards education of the young rather than to spend a greater effort in the guiding of older people. One would prefer to say nothing about the disappointments with the old people under the system of suggestion, they will try to obey an order but will merely smile at a suggestion, unless of course it suits them. Particularly is this the case on the Coast where it is important that the young people should be fashioned into something much better than their parents. Young natives at school, at least at an agricultural school, are under discipline: they are drilled daily, thes perform all the manual operations in connection with gardens ploughing, the experimental work; in other words they are taught te be good farm labourers. Many tasks that are considered only fit for women to perform are carried out by them. In addition they are taught the subject together with the three R’s. The improvement in the toys, their bearing, general alertness, and value as lab wrers is manifest. A small percentage are really good all round men who shuld train on to become teachers themselves We know that our trained boys are much more useful at work requiring a little skill than the boy who is merely an ordinary labourer. We do want to get out of the system which makes a boy an ordinary farm hand, a pruner, a driver, in other words we wish to train boys to be alert and useful in many lines of farm work. The old tendency of the native, derived from the Indian labourers, of professing one line of work only, be it cleaning boots. cutting grass, chopping wood. 76