The outlook, then, as regards the conflict in which the race is at present engaged, is so far satisfactory. The question will, however, naturally be asked, whether the beneficial effects of the educative process are permanent, or whether, after the Maoris leave school, they relapse into their old habits and customs. The savage nature, we know, is very apt to reassert itself. Miss Bird tells us how the Ainos of Japan educated at Tokiô relapsed into barbarism on returning to their own people, retaining nothing but a knowledge of the Japanese language. Another writer recounts how an Indian girl, one of the most orderly of the pupils at a lady’s school, has been known, on feeling herself aggrieved, to withdraw to her room, let down her back hair, paint her face, and howl. Something of the sort, it must be confessed, is not altogether unknown in New Zealand. I once went to see a Maori _haka_ or dance, interesting in its way, but not more edifying than native dances usually are. To my amazement, I saw among the performers a young lady whom I had known as a well-educated Maori girl, living in good circumstances, possessing excellent taste in dress, and who had been in the habit of taking her place with advantage in European ballrooms. On this occasion her costume, although not more _décolletée_ than European evening dress frequently is, would have created considerable sensation in an English gathering, consisting as it did simply of a loose calico gown. A very handsome, well-informed half-caste, one of the most lady-like persons I ever met, once confessed to me that she could never look on at a Maori _tangi_ or wake without feeling an irresistible inclination to rush in and tear her hair and howl like the rest. In fact, she admitted that she had to leave such scenes, or her emotions might have become too strong for her self-control. Again, I shall not soon forget the surprise created, a few years ago, when one of the most promising young Maoris in Wellington, who had been brought up with Europeans from childhood, who was being educated for a barrister, and who promised to be one of the ornaments of the profession, suddenly disappeared, and was next heard of as having flung off his European clothes and joined the fanatical followers of a half-demented Maori prophet known as Te Whiti. No inducements could prevail on him to return to civilisation, and he became one of the most devoted and credulous of the prophet’s adherents.