Victoria Values in Education

Te Ao Hou, December 1963, Page 15

Victoria Values in Education New Zealand culture is an offshoot of the culture of Victorian England. It is provincial and has developed apart from its parent stock, so that resemblances between the two are now fairly slight. None the less many Victorian values in education are still asserted. Also, in the course of our development, we have acquired some rather flattering ideas about ourselves. The first sentence of the Maori Affairs Department's booklet. ‘Integration’ runs, ‘for many years New Zealand has been recognized as one of the nations in the vanguard of those building multiracial societies …’ This must be true, we say it ourselves. A few lines further down there is a reference to ‘some iconoclastic individuals’ who claim that ‘this apparent harmony is more the result of self-delusion and lack of contact between the two groups than it is of genuine tolerance’. The writers concede an element of truth in this.