MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 December 1938, Page 4

MAORI MEMORIES

NO TEACHERS OF MAORI.

(Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”)

It is understood that the successful effort made by the Technical School at Palmerston North, is the first occasion on which the Maori language has been taught in any public school in New Zealand. This innovation was not in any way due to the Education Department or its staff of teachers, who, with a few outstanding exceptions, know very little of the language, its simplicity, or its poetic beauty. It was due to the initiative and combined efforts of the Citizens’ Lunch Club that an eager class of 40 pupils was enrolled for the first term. In that connection it is interesting to refer to an authoritative opinion given in 1844, when the first publication of a Maori lexicon appeared. “It has been said that the Maori language should be discouraged and that the natives should at once be taught English. If this were practicable, the advantages would be great, and civilisation cannot advance without it. It will be difficult to persuade Maoris to adopt our language and disuse their own. Irish and Welsh living in English towns continue to use their favourite language, after living with us as one people for centuries. Encouragement should be given the Natives to learn English; but it will be no less necessary for us to learn their language. It is interesting to know that many are ready to make use of every help which may be afforded them. If this is persevered in, great accession of valuable material will ere long be made.”

Why this considered opinion of the foremost of all our authorities on the Maori language should have been ignored for 94 years by the Education authorities is a problem. Is it because only one in a thousand of our school teachers 'knows anything of this ideally simple language.