Peter Buck Becomes a Medical Officer

Te Ao Hou, Winter 1952, Page 4

Peter Buck Becomes a Medical Officer ‘Peter, my boy, you come to school tomorrow,’ said the man who was to be his first schoolmaster at Urenui. He obeyed and was the only Maori boy in a roll of 17 pupils. He resolved that he would succeed in his work as well as the best of the others, and did so. When he left Urenui primary school he accompanied his father to the Wairarapa and worked on Ica station, near Masterton, for 10s. a week. His thirst for learning was quickly noticed. He was always asking for books, and a pedlar and a parson helped him with his learning. The parson was Rev. J. C. Andrew, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of New Zealand, Mainly because of his influence Peter was enrolled at Te Aute College (1896-1898). While he was there two medical scholarships were offered. Peter worked hard to obtain one, and was successful, but not until he had compressed a tremendous amount of study into a very short period. In less than a year he absorbed sufficient of the Greek language required for a pass in the medical preliminary examination—a feat which has never been equalled by any other New Zealand scholar. In athletics, too, he shone. He graduated in medicine at Otago Medical School (M.B. and Ch.B. 1904; M.D. 1910), later joined the Department of Health and became chief medical officer for the Maori people (1905–1908). As chief Maori medical officer he travelled widely in the North Island and gradually acquired an extensive knowledge of Maori metaphor and simile, and an almost complete education in Maori classics and traditions. He saw, too, the necessity for sweeping health reforms among his people if the race was to increase, progress and prosper. In his time he saw the Maori population increase from 45,000—its lowest ebb—to 50,000, and thought that advance a minor miracles In later years he was to confess his amazement and astonishment that the race could have doubled to 110,000 and his great pleasure at the non-fulfilment of dire predictions that the Maori race would die out.