Appointed the first Head of the Division of Social Sciences, Jerry K. Loveland was an original member of the Church College of Hawaii faculty. Following service with the U.S. occupation forces in Japan, he received his B.A. from Brigham Young University in 1951, and then spent a year abroad on a Fulbright fellowship at the University of Manchester, later completing his M.A. in 1954 at UCLA and his Ph.D. in 1967 at American University. Not surprisingly, the topic of his McKay lecture, the fifth in the series, proceeded directly from his primary professional interest in Polynesian studies. As a member of the first board of directors of the Polynesian Cultural Center, Loveland played a key rôle in designing several of the Center's villages. Among other Church callings, he served as bishop, high councilor, and temple sealer. Loveland married his wife Delores in the Salt Lake Temple in 1948; their two children are Christopher and Matthew.
Introduction
It is a great privilege to have been selected by the Faculty Association of the Church College of Hawaii to deliver this fifth annual David O. McKay Lecture. I treasure their esteem of me. I dedicate this lecture to the man whose name it bears: a man whom I honor as a true prophet.
My remarks today are concerned primarily with a few aspects of the problems of educating the South Pacific student at the Church College of Hawaii. Much of what I have to say, however, has relevance, I believe, for students from other areas in the Pacific Basin.
South Pacific
The islands of the South Pacific--Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia--are today in the process, or on the verge of a period of tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic change. In a period of transition such as is now occurring in the South Pacific or will shortly come to pass here, old ways of life are being disrupted, traditions are being trampled down, ancient values are called into question and old systems are being cast into the trash heap of history. Forces are being set in motion that may bring about the democratization and liberalization of many of these traditional societies. The movement from rural areas into urban centers, which is already under way, will continue to increase at an accelerated rate. There will quite likely be great political problems as the gulf between expectation and fulfillment becomes greater and greater and existing political systems prove incapable of providing for new demands for a higher standard of living.
The individual caught up in this process very often finds himself floundering in a state of psychological disarray. We know from our studies of other societies that in this situation individual and social reactions are sometimes violent and disruptive of the fabric of the existing social order. These have already been observed in parts of the South Pacific. The cargo cults and the nativistic movements of Melanesia are some examples of these types of behavior. In an earlier period, the Polynesians of Hawaii and New Zealand went through a process of social disorganization and thereby experienced tremendous population decline and the destruction of their traditional social systems. Fortunately, the native peoples of these latter two areas have made some accommodation to their altered social environment, but even today the Hawaiians and Maoris continue to experience the pains of social change.
Role of Education
It would be foolish to assert that education is a panacea, or a cure-all, for the multitude of social and psychological ills that are now facing or will soon face the peoples of the South Pacific. It is, however, a contention of the founders and the administration and faculty of this institution that education is something which is going to become more and more essential for the Pacific Islander's personal well-being. It has been said that knowledge is power. I believe that knowledge or education does give an individual power or control over his environment. By environment I mean not only a person's physical and natural environment but his economic, his social, his political, his intellectual and his inner or psychological environment. Where an individual lacks this control or sense of control over these various environments, he falls into a condition that we social scientists call alienation. For the individual, this is a feeling that he is not a part of the society in which he lives, that society has left him to rush on to something different, something new, something alien. The alienated individual is unhappy; he is at war with himself and society. It is my contention here that because vast social changes are imminent in the South Pacific, where they are not now occurring, it is very vital for the individual to acquire some sense of control over his environment lest he slip into an alienated situation. In this condition he will be in no position to influence the course and direction of his own life, to say nothing of the course and direction of the transitional society in which he must find a life for himself.
We all recognize that education is a process of communication. It is a process whereby information and values and ideas are transmitted from one individual to another individual. Where there are barriers to communication, where there are screens that filter out information, the processes of communication and education are warped or distorted. I would like to suggest today several problems that from my observation, tend to warp, tend to obscure this communication process and to make it difficult for the teacher to teach and the student to learn.
The Problem of Western Attitudes
The first problem I would like to point out is the presence of certain ambivalent Western attitudes toward the peoples and cultures of the Pacific Islands (by Western attitudes I mean American or European attitudes). Some of these I have seen in evidence on this campus, and I believe they have frequently been a cause of ineffective communication. I am going to discuss these ambivalent attitudes under two general categories of problems: firstly, the problem posed by the presence of two opposing myths: the Rousseauan myth and the Calvinist myth; and, secondly, the problem of value selectivity. In this context, for the administration and faculty, the problem of value selectivity means that we are not quite sure which values and skills ought to be taught. These problems are equally important for the Pacific Island student; he may not know which myth to believe about himself (if any myth at all), and he may be confused about which values he ought to accept and cherish and which skills he ought to acquire.
The term "Rousseauanism" comes from the name of the eighteenth-century French philosopher and romantic, Jean Jacques Rousseau, who advocated as a cure for men's ills the return to a simple, more "natural" life. Many of the earliest Europeans who penetrated into the Pacific area were heavily influenced by this Rousseauan myth and thought that what they saw in the life of the Pacific Islanders in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a true embodiment of Rousseau's romantic ideals. "Rousseauanism" in the Pacific has involved a rather fuzzy-minded, uncritical acceptance of many Pacific Islands folkways and cultures (Danielsson 22). Many of the earliest Westerners in the Pacific were heavily influenced by this myth, which was part and parcel of the romantic movement then so influential in the literature of the West. The American author Herman Melville succumbed to it. His book Typee(1846), an account of life among the early 19th-century Marquesans, presents an almost totally unrecognizable picture of the life and culture of those people because of his predisposition to romanticize that which he saw.
The French explorer, Bougainville, likewise imposed his a priori views upon the Tahitians. Of a highly complex social system he writes:
The Tahitians only have a small number of ideas relative on the one hand to a most simple and a most limited society, and on the other to wants which are reduced to the smallest number possible. (qtd. in Denning 39)
He also writes elsewhere:
We were almost come to. . . [the boats] when we were stopped by an islander of a fine figure, who was lying under a tree and he invited us to sit down by him on the grass. We accepted his offer: he then leaned towards us, and with a tender air, he slowly sang a song. . . to the tune of the flute, which another Indian [to the early Europeans all Pacific islanders were Indians] blew with his nose: this was a charming scene, and worthy of the pen of a Boucher. (qtd. in Denning 39)
One of the problems with myths is that when they prove to be untrue, we tend to become disillusioned. The French explorer, La Pérouse, was an early imbiber of the Rousseauan-romantic myth of Polynesian life, but he became disillusioned when the Samoans massacred a boatload of his crew, for reasons that seemed sufficient to them. Thereafter, for many decades, the Samoan Islands were avoided by European navigators because of the reputed savagery of the Samoans. We do a complete about face about a person or a people when some of our myths or false ideas about them are demonstrated to be incorrect. But in our disillusionment we are in no better position to judge critically what really motivates or characterizes a people or a culture than before our disillusionment.
We find people accepting the Rousseauan myth to this day. Without suggesting that it is entirely without merit, I do believe that it is based upon false premises and upon a faulty understanding of the cultures and life of the Pacific Islands.
There are a number of concomitants to the Rousseauan myth, one of which is the notion that has developed in some anthropological circles that a culture--that is, the total man-made environment of a people--has an integrity and a life of its own and, that like individuals, it ought to be protected and preserved. Besides this being obviously impossible to implement, I suggest that the idea is immoral. It was seriously suggested in some circles a few years ago that the islands of Micronesia be declared out of bounds to further Western penetration and that the people of this area be permitted to live their lives untouched and unspoiled in their "pristine simplicity." This proposal scarcely took into account the aspirations and wishes of the people involved who may want to change and who may want to better their social and material conditions. At best, Rousseauanism results in a patronizing, paternalistic attitude of which I shall say more later. My point here, however, is that those who succumb to this myth are misinterpreting the real character and nature of the social systems and cultures, and life situations of the peoples of the Pacific. Such a misinterpretation creates a barrier to understanding and communication.
The extreme opposite of the Rousseauan myth is the Calvinist myth. This derives its name, as you might guess, from John Calvin, the dour, pessimistic founder of the Calvinist religion. The earliest Protestant missionaries into the Pacific had a Calvinist orientation. Their theology taught them that men were inherently evil and that God was a stern, jealous, unbending, vengeful being who vented his wrath upon his children, the inhabitants of this earth. They were obsessed with a deep sense of their own sin and unworthiness, yet they also had a conviction that the values and institutions of Europe and America from whence they came were inherently best, and that these institutions and values could be transferred into the lives of the people of the Pacific. On the positive side, we must note that these early Calvinist missionaries were impelled to reform and to do good, as they saw it, for the peoples of the Pacific. But they rejected out of hand the traditional cultures that they found here. They could see practically nothing of any real value in these traditional societies and looked forward to the day when they were utterly destroyed and replaced by life styles closely approximating those to which they were accustomed.
In our context here, Calvinism reveals itself in the rejection by the teacher or student, from whatever social background he comes, of the traditional values and cultures of the South Pacific. The teacher may feel that every increment of traditional culture that is replaced by an increment of Western culture represents a total gain and is a measure of progress. On the other hand, the Pacific Islander who believes this myth about himself
feels, quite uncritically again, that if he ceases sleeping on a mat and climbs into a bed, he is likewise making real, definable social progress. I suggest that this myth, this rejection of traditional values, this unwillingness to understand systems and institutions, whether modern or pre-modern, is likewise a barrier to communication, to teaching, and learning. No teacher can possibly communicate effectively with a person or group whom he does not respect and for whom he does not have a degree of empathy. No student in an ambivalent social situation can possibly learn unless he has a sure grounding in his own traditions. Unless he is sure of himself and his place in society and in history, in space and in time, he is apt to be entirely uncritical of the things that he perceives in Western cultures and will end up buying the whole of it without being selective about those things which are of genuine worth. I will examine another aspect of this point later.
Value Selectivity
The problem of value selectivity is closely connected to the problems I have just discussed. This, again, is the problem of determining which values and which skills ought to be taught and learned. In addition to the values of the Gospel, I would personally prefer that the most solid and enduring Western values taught and understood on this campus be those values that center on the concept of individualism. These imply a respect for the integrity, the capacity, and the right to freedom of the individual.
I would like to see those values taught which encourage the organization and perpetuation of a society which emphasizes individual values. This type of society is called the open society. In the open society the individual is free to experiment, and is rewarded for his creativity by an increase in his personal standard of living and an enhancement of his social position. But I understand, and students and teachers alike should also understand, that this particular value runs squarely into contrary values in traditional Pacific societies. By custom, the values of Pacific Island culture have been group-centered, and the rôle and place of the individual is de-emphasized. Order is preferred to liberty, there is a distrust of innovation, and the position and rôle of the individual are clearly defined and fixed, very often for life.
The Westerner often fails to understand that the Pacific Islander will accept only those skills and values that he can immediately apply. He is quite pragmatic about items of Western civilization he will choose to accept. The history of the Pacific is full of examples of this. King Kamehameha accepted the weapons and the ships that he could use for warlike purposes against his enemies from the early English and American explorers and traders in Hawaii but he was not disposed to accept their social systems or values. The Maoris were interested in guns and gunpowder before they were interested in the pakeha's religions and the Marquesans were interested in rum before they became interested in democracy.
This has always been the case in the Pacific. One authority notes that in the 1830s nothing so much excited one Marquesan chief as a present of a red coat and breeches. He says,
but its value for him was not that it made him European. Its red color held magical powers for the Marquesans. The Marquesans wanted muskets and axes from the ships, but were not sufficiently impressed by the capitalist ethic which made them available to increase production of the sweet potato to buy them. They were as selective in their interest in the Europeans as the Europeans were in them. Shaving, hot tea, Gallapagos [sic] tortoises, doors on houses, grace before meals--these were some of the cultural items which excited them. The Europeans' show of power, the quid pro quo relationship of friends, property, work, religion divorced from the day to day needs of life--the meanings of these passed them by. (Denning 41)
The same Marquesan chief who treasured the red coat and pants was quite willing to exchange his ancient religion for a Christian church on the hill of his valley--because it would make a fine attraction for European ships (Denning 40-41).
On the other hand, the Westerner, be he teacher, missionary or whatever, may be quite unaware of the impact that a single aspect of his culture may have upon a traditional civilization. Who would have thought, for an example, that tiny microbes, the germs of measles and mumps and whooping cough, could utterly decimate the population of the 19th-century Pacific? In addition to this, we find many instances of substantial parts of a traditional economy being changed with the introduction of European foods. As the latter become preferred--as tinned fish is substituted for fresh fish caught off the reefs--a whole economy may become transformed, and with it large portions of the traditional culture as well.
But we still have this problem: which skills and which values are relevant, and how long will they continue to be relevant? As far as technical skills are concerned, it appears to me that the process of automation will accelerate at a tremendous relative rate in Pacific societies once it begins. The simplest technical skills will become those which will most soon become obsolete. I cannot predict just when this is going to happen, or that it is going to happen in the immediately foreseeable future. Economic development in the island areas is currently being held up by a number of factors, including the lack of capital, and the presence of inhibiting disincentives in the social systems of traditional Pacific Island society, just to mention a couple of items. But it is certain that social change as a by-product of economic change is inevitable and is imminent. There will be radical changes in existing economic systems and the means whereby people make their living and in the development of new systems of production and distribution.
In this situation and under this expectation, it therefore becomes necessary for teachers to teach and students to learn those skills which will not become immediately obsolete. Students must learn those skills which can be adapted to change. The best guarantee here, obviously, is for the student to learn principles along with his knowledge of specific techniques. He must be something of a generalist in perspective as well as a trained technician. I am not applying this injunction solely to the area of vocational education. I mean that all students in all fields should acquire a perspective that one can obtain only through a general or liberal education. It has been my experience that too many students from the South Pacific, even the majority perhaps, arrive here for an education only with a specific vocation in mind. It is good, it is fine to have specific goals but the objective of a liberal education is the development of the whole man. The assumption of a liberal education is that those who seize the opportunity to acquire learning in a variety of areas will learn principles that will be applicable throughout their lives in a multitude of situations.
I wish, however, to inject a cautionary note at this point. There is such a thing as being too much of a generalist. Many of the new nations of the world, although not in the Pacific particularly, are over-supplied with graduates in the arts and humanities. In spite of the fact that their countries desperately need trained people, these individuals are currently unemployed. They are unemployable because the societies in which they live need people who can perform specific tasks: who can teach, who can farm, or who can operate the machinery of commerce and industry and government. People who leave college with a general education background are prepared to do several things: to understand, to appreciate and to know an opportunity when they see one. They also can acquire the capacity for empathy, something I will discuss shortly. They ought not, however, expect to be made directors of the corporation as soon as they pick up a Bachelor's degree. They should expect to get dirt under their fingernails for quite a few years after they leave these halls.
Neo-colonialism
Another problem that stands in the way of effective communication between the Westerner and the Pacific Islander is the presence of what I shall term a neo-colonialist relationship. Colonialism, in whatever form it takes, political, economic, or social, always involves the domination of a majority by a minority. Typically, the controlling minority feels that it has a monopoly on intellectual capacity, technical skills, or other abilities. It is very easy for the dominant party in a colonial situation to assume the natural and basic inferiority of the people he is dominating. One aspect of colonialism has always been racism, the assumption by the dominant party that the people whom he has under his authority are inferior biologically by virtue of their race, which is very often apt to be different than his own. Racism has always been a barrier to understanding and to communication. Effective communication can only take place between people who have a sense of basic and fundamental equality--whatever their other differences and varying skills might be.
One aspect of the colonial situation or the neo-colonial situation is what has been termed the primitivist assumption. (This is also an aspect of the Calvinist myth I have discussed already.) The colonial authority or the dominating party here equates primitive technology with infantile behavior. That is, he assumes that because a people have an inferior technology, they are childlike in every other aspect of their behavior. He very often fails completely to understand the roots of particular types of behavior which he considers to be of a childlike or infantile character.
Another aspect of neo-colonialism, and this occurs among even the most well-meaning colonialists, is the assumption by the Westerner of the general or total irrelevance or unimportance of any non- or pre-European history, culture or social systems. Out of hand, he regards that which is not like his own as being inferior and inconsequential. While it is true, I believe, that particular aspects of certain social systems are better, in a normative sense, than others, this does not imply that systems other than my own do not have some integrity and some characteristics that are of positive value--positive in a sense that they make a contribution to the well-being and development of the individual personality. (I could cite many of these from the Pacific Island cultures, but it is beyond the scope of this lecture.) Suffice it to say that in my opinion there is a great deal in the traditional cultures of the Pacific Islands that is worthy of emulation.
In a colonial situation a dependency relationship develops between the dominant and the dominated person or persons in which the dominated person or group assumes a permanent position of inferiority in relation to the dominating group. There can, consequently, never be a relationship here between equals. One of the insidious things about this dependency relationship--in my estimation--is that it becomes habitual. The dominant group or person typically finds great satisfaction in this relationship. He savors the deference given him by the dependent people and he may resist strenuously anything which will upset or interfere with this relationship. At the same time, the individual on the bottom end of this dependency relationship frequently finds that he too is in a psychologically satisfying situation. In return for his deference, the dominant person or group is expected to supply him with his material wants and personal security. He has chosen or becomes habituated to servility. He has elected to accept the warmth of security in exchange for the cold but invigorating breeze of liberty. But I must note again that personal liberty and freedom do not rank high in the hierarchy of traditional South Pacific social values.
Projection
We frequently find as part of this dependency relationship the operation of the process that psychologists call projection. Projection is the act of casting upon others those faults we find in ourselves or those fears that we have about ourselves. In a dependency relationship, we find people--colonial administrators, managers, teachers, missionaries, and even college professors--frequently very much concerned about certain attributes of the people with whom they are dealing. One individual may greatly admire the apparently carefree, uninhibited life of the people he observes. This person, of course, is a partaker of the Rousseauan myth. In this situation, he may, as the term is frequently expressed, "go native." We see this almost daily in the college student from the mainland who lets his beard grow, cuts his pants off above the knees, and sheds his shoes to walk in his tender, haole feet over unaccustomed sharp coral and hot sidewalks. In another instance, a person on the dominant side of this dependency relationship who is imbued with the Calvinist myth may project his fears of untidiness and slovenliness onto the people over whom he is exercising authority. Here we see the classic picture of the European or American in the tropics who wears suit and tie to work in all types of weather no matter what the temperature might be, or no matter how high the humidity is, preferring to swelter in dignified discomfort because he is too afraid of himself to alter his own irrelevant standards. He is fearful that if he loosens up these standards he will somehow slip into a morass of disorder and carelessness. [Mason, quoting] a French scholar, O. Mannoni, described this projection process in an analysis of colonialism he wrote a few years ago about Malagasy society. He says,
One man will try to ignore the person on whom he projects the characteristics he dislikes and will make himself as different as possible from him,--becoming fastidiously neat and tidy, for example, if he lives among a people he regards as unmethodical and careless; another will give up the struggle and go native; a third will try to reform, to civilize and to evangelize in others what he believes he has overcome in himself; a fourth will resort to irrational brutality. In each of these cases, the colonial has identified with the 'native' something he dislikes in himself; this occurs because the 'colonial situation offers us expiatory victims at little cost.' (14)
The Patronizing Attitude
Another aspect of the dependency relationship, and a very obvious one, is the paternalistic or patronizing attitude. Paternalism is the "granting" of privileges to people, not because they are entitled to them, but because it pleases the granter to do so. He may be a very sincere paternalist, but at the same time the act engenders in his own breast the feeling that he is quite a superior fellow. The recipient of this paternalistic behavior is often forced into a position of phony gratitude. He may enjoy having these bounties showered upon him, but he may prefer to feel that he is rightfully entitled to them--if he is a man of pride as Westerners understand the term. I should make it clear at this point, however, that paternalism has been a major aspect of the relationship between the ruler and the ruled in traditional Pacific Island societies. This fact makes it relatively easy for the people of the Pacific to accept paternalism, to endure patronizing, and to put up with a dependency relationship that many Westerners would not abide.
My thesis here, however, is that a dependency relationship again sets up a barrier to communication. Furthermore, the dependency habit is catching: a person who is or who has been on the bottom end of a dependency relationship will attempt to establish this same kind of relationship with other people. If a student at this college, for example, finds himself in a dependency relationship here with the administration and faculty, he may attempt to establish another dependency relationship with other people--only this time he will be in the dominant situation. A vicious situation may be thus perpetuated.
Problems of Transition
Finally, I wish to discuss the problem of the reassimilation of the educated Pacific Island student back into his own culture or into Western culture. One theory has it that as a person becomes Westernized, he becomes lost to his own society. If he is not lost to his own society he may fall between two stools: his own ancestral culture and the culture of the West, because he is unable to make a satisfactory adjustment to either system. In this situation it is held that he may experience profound personality disturbances. We actually know very little about the process of psychological change in transitional societies, and the evidence is sometimes apparently contradictory. One set of evidence substantiates the statement that I have just made, but there is other research that indicates the person in the process of change from non-Western traditionalism to Westernization may actually find his life situation to be happier and more satisfying than those who are not in the process of change, even though he may have problems in gaining acceptance of the people of his group.
Daniel Lerner made a study of the transitional societies of the Middle East. (A transitional society or a transitional person is a society or person who is in the process of changing from traditionalism to modernity.) He found that of three different categories of people, the traditional--the transitional, and the modern--that the traditional were the most unhappy. He also found that the modern person was most unhappy in those societies that were most tradition-oriented. But even in these tradition-oriented societies the modern person was happier than the traditional person (Lerner 101-103). The whole point of this one particular study was that persons who are making the transition from tradition to modernity are happier than those persons who are not. Lerner also concluded that the person who is happiest in a transitional society has what he calls a "mobile personality" (47-52). The mobile personality is distinguished, he says, by a "high capacity for identification with new aspects of his environment" (49). He has a great capacity for empathy, which means, here, the ability to understand what it is that is going on around him. "Empathy," he says, is
the inner mechanism which enables newly mobile persons to operate efficiently in a changing world. Empathy, to simplify the matter, is the capacity to see oneself in the other fellow's situation. This is an indispensable skill for people moving out of traditional settings. (49-50)
I believe Lerner is correct. This being the case, a most important task of the faculty of this institution is to teach students, those who are experiencing the process of transition, how to develop the capacity for empathy, how to understand and interpret the character of the social change in which they are participants. This injunction applies equally to all students at this college who come from homes in non-Western countries.
The Importance of Tradition
It may seem paradoxical, but I believe that the problem of transition will be less difficult for those whose roots are firmest in their traditional cultures, that is, for those whose understanding, or empathy for their own heritage is the greatest. They will have problems, though I suspect that those whose position is highly ambiguous have the most difficulty in making a successful adjustment to a changing life. The ambiguous person, in the context in which I am using the term, is the one whose perception of his own position in society is clouded. In the South Pacific free intercultural marriage has produced many people who are socially in an ambiguous position. They frequently have difficulty gaining acceptance in either group to which they belong by blood lines or deciding which group they wish to cast their lot with. The ambiguous person is often a poorly qualified interpreter of events, either to himself or anyone else. The ambiguous individual may find that no one will accept seriously his interpretation of Western culture and civilization, either Westerner or Pacific Islander. For this reason, I expect that for many years to come Westerners will have to continue to serve as guides and teachers to the Pacific Islanders.
In this situation, it seems to me, it becomes very important for this institution to make available to the people whom we serve as much information as possible about their own cultures and about the societies from which they have come. Here in this college, students from the island areas are in a very well placed position to view their cultures and homelands from a perspective that will give them whole new insights about themselves and their history. Pacific Island students ought to take the opportunity while they are here to inform themselves more fully about the nature and character of their own civilization and societies. It should not be assumed by the administration and faculty here that Island students are really well versed in their own cultures. This is almost never the case, just as it is almost never the case that American students are really well versed about the nature of their society and the lessons of its history.
The Westernized Student
A frequently stated objective of this college since its conception has been the training of South Pacific students for service in their homelands. That is, we have hoped that the Pacific Island students will leave here and return to their homes, there prepared and anxious to render service to their community. In this we have very frequently been disappointed. The college has become as often as not a gateway to the United States and its opportunity for a high material standard of living and less a training ground for service in South Pacific communities. Anyone who has seen the level of material life in the South Pacific--even in the most sophisticated areas, excluding, of course, Australia and New Zealand can readily appreciate why a Polynesian or a Fijian student might prefer life in America, even in a menial position, to life in his homeland. We ought, perhaps, therefore, to revise our expectations of the graduating Island student, and to expect to train him to live in and cope with society and life in the United States. We are, I am sure, quite likely to continue to see the Pacific Island student doing all he can to remain in this country.
On the other hand, it is my personal conviction--and I wish to emphasize this final point most strongly--that the greatest degree of individual happiness and personal satisfaction will come to those students who conscientiously train themselves for service in their home country. In time they should return to their homes, prepared and ready to re-enter their home communities. Material success, personal prestige, and social position are inevitably, or often enough, the by-products of community service. The opportunities for all of these things in this country for Pacific Island students are extremely limited. The Island student will have great difficulty in becoming really absorbed into American life, although it is concededly much easier here in Hawaii than anywhere else in the United States.
It has been my intention today to give you food for thought. I think that much of what I have said contains a grain of truth, although much of it has been greatly over-simplified. I ask that you ponder these things, that you turn them over in your minds, and that you decide if what I say has any merit in your teaching and learning experience. I hope that I have opened the door for argument and discussion. I hope that you will express your disagreements to me or to someone else, but in any event that you will discuss these things. That what I have said here may stimulate you to a more profound perception of your problems as a student or teacher is my humble prayer, and I ask it in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.
Works Cited
Danielsson, Bengt. Love in the South Seas. New York: Reynal, 1956.
Denning, Gregory. "Ethnohistory in Polynesia." Journal of Pacific History 1(1966): 23-42.
Lerner, Daniel. The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East. New York: Free P of Glencoe, 1958.
Mason, Philip. Foreword. Prospero and Caliban: The Psychology of Colonization. By O. Mannoni. Trans. Pamela Powesland. New York: Praeger, 1956. 9-15