PACIFIC RESEARCH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21414, 11 February 1933, Page 10

PACIFIC RESEARCH

The investigations being carried out by Mr. Humphreys, keeper of the Melanesian collection in the Ethnological Museum at Cambridge University, emphasise the vast scope for scientific and historical research in the Pacific. Although the field is becoming well known, it presents new features at almost every turn ; from its mere spatial extent, with a variety of subjects for study that at one time encouraged superficial surveys, the student of to-day passes quickly to inquiry along specific avenues. This sometimes necessitates a revision of the groundwork once thought satisfactory, but chiefly, it means the filling in of more and more detail where earlier investigators were content to put general conclusions on record. Viewed in this way, the field offers a marvellous opportunity for individual discovery and description and explanation. Fortunately, the number of qualified investigators is increasing, and there is accumulating a large store of illuminating literature on the various subjects. It remains for popular interest to be awakened and intensified in the minds of the rising generation of this and other Pacific countries. This is happening, but not so rapidly and surely as is desirable. Every New Zealand school ought to become a centre of inspiration for this sort of study, not as a task but as a pleasant hobby. Intense interest is possible, whichever way is taken among the many paths of reading and observation. "A study of the Pacific, and of the various races which have inhabited it," says Mr. Humphreys, "is most absorbing." Once the young folk of this land arc generally aware of this, there will be created an atmosphere in which voluntary research, done for sheer love of it, will flourish. The academic specialist is not to be despised, but better far is a host of intelligent amateurs bent on knowing some things accurately, if broadly, and capable of inspiring others in the pleasant and profitable pursuit.