Maori "Integration” Not “Assimilation”

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29909, 24 August 1962, Page 14

Maori "Integration” Not “Assimilation”

{New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, Aiu-g. 23. Every New Zealander should be able to say at least a few words in Maori, and there should be university and teachers’ college courses for instruction in the language to Maori and pakeba. The Director of the Canterbury Museum (Dr. R. S. Duff) voiced these opinions last night when he addressed a meeting convened by the Maori Women’s Welfare League and the Federation of University Women. He was speaking on “Thoughts inspired by the Maori Education Foundation.” Dr. Duff, who prefaced his remarks with a fluent Maori oration, referred to the psychological effect on the Maori if he realised his language and culture were considered important enough to be taught in schools. The root of the Maoripakeha problem, he contended, lay in the policy of assimilation, not integration, which had persisted since the days of Governor Fitzroy. Assimilation meant the “swallowing” of the Maori by the pakeha civilisation. Integration, on the other hand, meant the dbming together of th 6 two cultures, which would result in the creation of a new one greater than either. The Maori had suffered because he was a minority which had been forced to accept the system and standards of life and culture imposed by the majority.

The Maori Education Foundation offered the opportunity of alleviating the results of an unjust education system. If, however, its policy were simply to provide more scholarships, it was only attacking the symptoms of the problem. He was amazed that Maoris could read and write their own language at all, said Dr. Duff. It had been made an offence to speak it in the schools in the 1870’s, and young Maori children arriving at school for the first time were confronted with not only new surroundings and conditions, but a new language. That probably was why there had been little enthusiasm for education. New Policy About 30 years ago a new policy of adaptation had been adopted, but it was really only another name for assimilation, although there was no longer punishment for Maoris speaking their own language, and Maori studies had been introduced into the schools, though not the language. Today, although the Education Department was willing to teach the language, there was a serious shortage of qualified teachers. Dr. Duff thought it was essential that teachers should be trained in this subject and that there should be lecturers in every teachers’ college to pass on even elementary Maori to all pupils. "I am not a sentimentalist,”

he said, “but I believe the basic injury to the Maori ■people and to our nation was our refusal to realise the value of the culture and Language.”