Northern Territory Times and Gazette (Darwin, NT : 1873 - 1927)(about) |
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Friday 14 July 1899
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* THE DALY RIVER MISSION.
8 -
If anyone took the impression from our last week's remarks that the 'Daly Mission was being abandoned because of the inability of the Mission to ob- tain satisfactory results from the blacks it was a mistaken interpretation. The Rev. Father Conrad, who has, perhaps, the greater experience of all tile mem- bers of the Mission, is of the opinion that the work of Christianising the natives will have to be, extended over several generations before any perma- nent results can be expected. He has studied the language, the manners and customs, and the general disposition of the Macks very closely, and in his daily intercourse with both young and old at the Mission he has had ample opportunity of delineating their charac- ter. Little or nothing can bo done with the old people, except to amelior- ate their lot by the gifts of the good things provided by the Mission, and it
is the influence of the elders that makes it so difficult for the Mission to secure the desired results with the children.
The development of the juvenile brain into channels of thought superior to native intelligence would be sooner achieved if the parents of the children
would leave them at school instead of taking them into the bush periodically and returning them as .dense as ever.
This is the true crux of the whole
question. The Fathers are prepared
to admit that the measure of success achieved by them during a term of nearly 20 years is not so substantial as they could wish, but, as Father Con- rad confidently puts it, the labors of the present Mission will be entitled to respect if they have the effect of turn- ing the minds of the younger natives, even in the smallest degree, towards a better and nobler existence than is
now lived by the Australian savage. The missionaries are quite content to continue their Christianising efforts, but the late inundation rendered it
impossible for them to remain where they were, risking every year the loss of their stock, the ruin of their gar- dens, and their own lives by floods.