HISTORY THAT COUNTS

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 148, 25 June 1934, Page 8

HISTORY THAT COUNTS

THE LAST THIRTY YEARS

IT SHOULD BE TAUGHT

"Thcro is no surer mark of the illeducated man 'than a low opinion of the great profe'ssion of teaching," said Mr. J. A. Spender in the course of an address on "The" Teacher "and the Modern World," delivered at the N.U.T. Conference at Brighton, reports "Public Opinion." . '.'lt falls to you to keep the British people informed of- the "nature, the responsibilities, and the ■ difficulties of your task," said Mr. Spender. "Teachers should^, tell the parents how they go about -their work, and what it means when economy requires them, to teach classes of unmanageable size. You should tell the. Government what the inevitable results "must bo if you, are put'ia the'-strait-waistcoat of some code which has been framed not on your experience of what children really are and' how the mind works, but' on somebody elso-'s idea of how it ought to work. The public should bo told boldly that many, if not meet, of its ideas about education are wrong. "You must aver that your object is to promote human happiness, which depends enormously on the possession of a mind -quickened in.its interests and thoughts, seeing the world as the wonderful thing it is, filling its leisure with new discoveries in Nature and human nature—the widest of all fields —having its own refuges from the storms without. • "The teacher, more than\ any man, moulds the public opinion of the future, and has it in his power to make it intelligent and wise. AVhat chiefly distinguishes an educated from tin illeducated public opinion is 'seeing things in perspective 'j and education should supply for the young tho standards of judgment which they should apply,to tho mass of material which will como before their mind in their daily lives. "Is it impossible for recent historyl, which for tho'rising generation is "the most important, of all history, to bo impartially taught to the,young? The history books generally' stop at the Boer War; and yet in phe subsequent thirty-five moat portentous events have taken place, events'of which some clear knowledge is imperative if our young people are to begin to understand the shattered world inow in the remaking.

"There, are risks 'On' either hand, risks of ignorance on the one side, and of getting involved in politics on tho other; but of the two the risk'of ignorance isVifar the v greater. > Knowledge of the comparatively simple facts will enable the youth of today to compare tho present ■< with the past; to understand broadly the.• difference between tho idea of a. balance of power which dominated a pre-war Europe, and the idea of tho League of Nations, which is painfully struggling to gain a footing in the world today. "Tho good teacher is he who succeeds in planting in the minds of his pupils the idea of the good life—tho lifo within" easy reach of the vast majority, to which a modest competence must, materially speaking, bo tho limit."