Gaelic in schools?

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33037, 3 October 1972, Page 14

Gaelic in schools?

Sir,—While “Haggis McSporran’s” letter was obviously written tongue-in-cheek, many a true word was spoken in jest. Actually, New Zealand would be wise to retain as much as possible of its individual cultures. Its sister nation, Canada, is a mosaic of cultures, and the richer for the fact that, unlike its neighbour, the U.S.A., it has not poured these separate cultures into a common melting-pot. Americans are just Americans from the first generation, but Canadians are also Scottish, Polish, Icelandic, Ukrainian, French, and so on through several generations. I remember seeing a class of third-genera-tion Canadian schoolchildren sing at the Winnipeg musical festival in the language of their forefathers, Ukrainian, which they spoke in addition to (not instead of) English. New Zealand could not, of course, hold so many different cultures, but it should jealously guard the handful it does have, and especially Maori, which is unique in the world.—Yours, etc., SCOTTISH CANUCK-KIWI. October 2, 1972. Sir, —Mr McSporran is correct. New Zealanders today are a hotchpotch of all that was worst in European society in the nineteenth century. Perhaps if we take a leaf from Canada’s book we might salvage some of our identity as true sons of Scot-

land. New Zealand could become a federation of four provinces: the Scottish centred on Dunedin, English centred on Christchurch, Irish focused on Auckland, and all the left-overs in Wellington. With an invigorating climate to aid us the Scottish migrants could develop a gaelic-speaking, whiskydrinking paradise in the south.—Yours, etc., HEATHER BAGPIPE. September 30, 1972. [This correspondence is now closed. — Ed., “The Press.”]