A WORD FOR DANCING

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 119, 13 February 1926, Page 8

A WORD FOR DANCING

MORALLY GOOD IN COOK GROUP SPONSORED BY STATE In these days when dancing is being attacked by moralists, it is interesting to note that moral aid is forthcoming for the dancing art from the Rockefeller Foundations medical surveyor of the Pacific, Dr. Lambert. On grounds of public welfare, Dr. Lambert welcomes the swing-back in the Cook Islands from tile old dancesuppression tendency of the mission to a healthy form of dancing “sponsored bv Government.” He reports:— “On almost every island of the Cook Islands there are clubs—encouraged by the Government Agents—where, under proper supervision and during proper hours on given days in the week, European dances are held which are attended by as clean and welldressed a lot of young folk as one could wish to see.

"I was told by observing people that these dances had had the effect of diminishing the drinking of bush beer and had had a beneficial effect on the morals of the youth. On Aitutaki on Christmas and Boxing Days I saw old dances representing the migrations of the Polynesian race. On the whole it must be good for these people to dance, and it seems to make them happy and contented. “It is inevitable, with the advent of civilisation, that dancing, formerly suppressed by missions, must return. Best that it came sponsored and controlled bv the Government in a proper way.” ’ On the subject of missionary influence, Dr. Lambert remarks on the co-existence in the Cook Islands of ‘‘two different philosophies of education.” Tlie form of education adopted bv the New Zealand Government has developed in the lower group—which is the more accessible, better situated for trade, and more populous—while the upper group has remained under an education of different outlook and organisation. “While the education of the natives in the South has come under the influence of tlie culture, the ideals, and the practices of European teachers, that of the people of the North is still in the hands of the London Missionary Society, whose influence must necessarily fend in different directions from that of a Schools Department of a State Government. It is probable, however, that befoie’manv vears the Schools Department will be entirely responsible for the education of the natives of the whole group. Recently the Government has subsidised the efforts of the Mission. which, however, still undertakes tlie training of the teachers for the Northern Island. As the work of these teachers is now to be supervised bv the Superintendent of Schools for Cook Islands, there will be necessarily some modification in the outlook and curriculum of these schools.”