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system of government. The royal house with its fine Queen Salote and her very able son the Crown Prince who, when I was there,
was combining the offices of Prime Minister, Minister of Education and Minister of Health, has the respect and affection of their people. Tris little country too is dependent for staff upon New Zealand and provides scholarships and bursaries for its promising youngsters to finish their education in New Zealand.
(1) The Queen Salote Girls School is charmingly Edwardian. The girls, who are all fine and well-built, have hair done in two long plaits tied with bright blue ribbon, wear blue tunics of the 1910 pattern and white blouses and sit in a school strongly reminiscent of the one I attended myself. Their whole attitude is one of grave yet cheerful courtesy and they are a credit to those who teach them and to their country. The girls were very busily engaged upon local crafts, for it is a characteristic of the Tongan education system that all children should devote a considerable amount of time to their local crafts, basketry, wood-work, carving, Tapa cloth, and so on.
(2) Tongans sing magnificently and any school room you visit will have the music of a song on the top of the blackboard in tonic Sol Fa, but with numbers instead of words, because unfortunately the words of the tonic Sol Fa represent bad language which no Tongans would use.
(3) Dancing. Everyone dances and dances with vigour and enthusiasm. It is interesting to contrast the dancing of the girls with that of the boys, and when the two dance together as they so often do it is fascinating to see how the slow quiet movements of the girls act as a kind of accompaniment to the leaping and twisting of the boys.
(4) One of the most fascinating characteristics was that cooperation among communites. My visit coincided with a public holiday and rather than that it should be wasted the Education Department asked the villages round the capital whether they would come to the great compound of the Training College and allow the school children to put on a show which they would ultimately present to the royal family. Each village responded with enthusiasm and at their own expense provided a lorry or cart, the band, the clothes, and an incredible number of hangers-on. They all arrived in great heart and provided an entertainment that was exhilarating and delightful. Everyone had a hand in every aspect of the show. Mothers and women teachers would slip in in the middle of a dance, to adjust a skirt, or tic on an arm band, or stick a flower behind the ear of some leaping small boy, and occasionally a grandmother thinking that the tempo of the dance was too slow would jump in front of the children and demonstrate how much more vigorously she could perform, while uncles and elder brothers formed the band that accompanied the dancing or the singing. And when the day was over the jolly, cheerful crowds packed themselves into their lorries and carts and went merrily home.
The Tongans are in a position to maintain their compulsory education and to extend their facilities because behind them they have a system of land tenure which makes available a plot of about 84 acres to every boy as soon as he reaches the age of 16 and this gives both a financial and occupational stability to the inhabitants of this fascinating little country.
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