Teaching Module

New Zealand Childhoods (18th–20th c.)

Document Based Question

by Ryba L. Epstein
(Suggested writing time: 50 minutes)

Societies try to pass on their basic beliefs and values to their children through both official and unofficial channels. The ideals about what children should be taught, how they should be raised, and how they should behave vary greatly from one group to another and over time.

Analyze the documents below and determine the changing attitudes toward children in 19th- and 20th-century New Zealand, as well as the official and unofficial ways those values are shaped.

Your essay should:

  • have a clear thesis,
  • use all of the documents to support your thesis,
  • analyze the point of view of the documents, and


  1. S. Locke, Annual Report on Native Affairs [Government Document], 1874.

    The Maoris in this part of the country are in that position where they find the balance of power turned in favour of the European. They feel the old mana and customs and power of their chiefs are gone: at the same time they have only acquired that amount of knowledge that makes them jealous of the change going on around them, without having, for the altered position in which they are placed, learnt those habits of steady industry and application of general principles for their guidance, to allow their participating freely in the general progress. . . . [There] is a party of industrious Natives in the district who cultivate extensively, paying attention to improving their properties and educating the rising generation. . . . There are two schools established in the district, under the provisions of the Native Schools Act, . . . both of which are conducted in a most satisfactory manner, and the children show a great deal of progress in their knowledge of the English language, considering the short time they have been learning; so much so that it is time to consider some way of providing for some of them by apprenticing them to useful trades. . . .
  2. "Shocking Disaster at Cambridge: Three Children Burn to Death." Newspaper article. 1884.

    Mrs. Osborne, having some shopping to do in the town, put her infant child to be, and locked it up by itself in the bedroom, so that it would not be disturbed by the other two children [aged 2 and 4 years]. Seeing that everything was safe, there being no fire in the house since breakfast time, she shut up the boy and the girl in the kitchen, and then proceeded to town on her business. I was the usual thing for Mrs. Osborne to shut up her children, believing that did she not do so they would find their way to the river, only a few chains distant. . . . The Coroner . . . referred to the boys’ habit of using matches as described by the mother, and he had no doubt but that the fire originated by the boy getting hold of the matches on this occasion, and in some way setting fire to their clothes or some paper that may have been lying about. . . . He though that the children might have been left with some neighbor.

    A juryman informed the coroner that there were no neighbors in the vicinity, and the unfortunate people were not in a position to employ a girl to look after the house in their absence.

    A verdict of accidental death by burning was returned.
  3. Parliamentary debate over the "Juvenile Depravity Suppression Bill." 1896.

  4. W. E. Spencer, Inspector of Schools, Taranaki Education Office, 1898.

  5. Female Interviewee (born 1897). Interview by Colonial Childhoods Oral History Project.

  6. Code of Honour from The New Zealand Boys' Diary. 1936.








    . . .

  7. New Zealand School Photographs 1950 and 1964.
  8. Sanitarium Weet-Bix Packet [Advertisement], 1990s.

How to Cite This Source
