The flight from reason in New Zealand education

Anderson, William, Catholic Teachers' Association of Auckland, Auckland, N.Z., 1944

This eBook is a reproduction produced by the National Library of New Zealand from source material that we believe has no known copyright. Additional physical and digital editions are available from the National Library of New Zealand.

EPUB ISBN: 978-0-908328-45-1

PDF ISBN: 978-0-908331-41-3

The original publication details are as follows:

Title: The flight from reason in New Zealand education

Author: Anderson, William

Published: Catholic Teachers' Association of Auckland, Auckland, N.Z., 1944

THE FLIGHT FROM REASON IN NEW ZEALAND EDUCATION

By WILLIAM ANDERSON, M.A.

This is the first ol a series ol pamphlets

to be published b\ the Catholic Teachers'

Association ol Auckland. These pamphlets

will be a study ol the Report of the

Consultative Committee, 1942-43, on the

Post-Primarv School Curriculum.

The text ol this pamphlet originally

formed an address delivered to the Auckland Catholic Teachers in 1944.

Professor William Anderson occupies the Chair

ol Philosophy ;ii Auckland University College.

Cover design by Richard King.

Printed by WHITCOMBE & TOMBS LTD.

THE FLIGHT FROM REASON IN NEW ZEALAND EDUCATION

B> WILLIAM ANDERSON, M.A.

The crisis in New Zealand's system of State Education that has been precipitated by the publication of the Report of the Hon. 11. G. R. Mason's Committee on the post-primary curriculum marks the end of a certain great venture in democracy. In New Zealand it could until now have been said that instruction in at least the secular subjects of a grammar-school course was available, at the public expense, for all children who had shown a capacity to profit therein. In this country at least a secondary school course in mathematics and languages should not be the close preserve of rank and wealth, but the opportunity of all. Such has been the heritage of Seddonian democracy. But. if this Committee has its way, such a curriculum will no longer be available here, and that not merely in State-supported schools. Parents will not be able to secure it for their children, even by going to the expense of maintaining by fees a private school, and having it made a Registered Secondary School as they can do now. in order to secure a certain religious basis for the teaching. For the purposes of the subjects of secular instruction, all schools are State schools. That is to say, if a private school fails to comply with the curriculum laid down by the State Education Department, the school will be deregistered, and the parents of its pupils, if these pupils are within the age-limit for compulsory schooling, liable to prosecution for failing to educate them, tor the Report makes a certain minimum course, or "central core" as they call it. uniformly compulsory upon all types ot postprimary school. The time to be devoted to this "core", and the nature of its contents, effectually, if not in so many words, exclude the traditional "secondary education". Add to this that the Government has raised the age of compulsory schooling to fifteen, which

[3] '

goes far into the post-primary stage. The consequence is that only those New Zealanders wealthy enough to send their children to Australia or England for their schooling will be able to obtain what lias hitherto been the right of all. a grammar-school education. This change, parents would do well to remember, requires, moreover, no legislation or other Parliamentary action to enforce it. It can be made by mere departmental edict.

C/. / VAX O E A M O V E M 1: \ 1

The Report represents the climax oi a movement that has been going on for many years and has by now subverted well-nigh all the traditional standards of schooling in this country. So strongly has the party favouring the tendencies of the Report become entrenched in ( vt ry part of our educational system, that it is only by the intervention of parents and employers that existing rights can be safeguarded or recognized educational standards restored. The issues are such as the public can no longer leave for decision to "experts", whether these be teachers. State officials, or university "Professors of Education". The questions at stake are questions of over-ruling philosophy, on which the "experts" are just as likelv to be wrong as the man in the street.

TYPICAL OF THE NE W E O V C ATI O X

The Report now before the public is a typical document of the New Education. As such it bears all the marks of that trend, in the various fields of thought and action, that comes down to us from the nineteenth century, which Mr Arnold Lunn has aptly entitled "The Flight from Reason". A reaction against the claims of the intellect in man is as characteristic of New Education as hatred of the intellect is in the works of Mr D. H. Lawrence. New Psychology, another phase of the same movement, offers every means of exploiting the irrational elements in human nature. Never before has the weak and evil side of humanity been studied so thoroughly by so many. The good is to be taken as read; emphasis upon it merely produces a generation of unrealistic simpletons and dupes. Education is now to be regarded as a science, after the

[4]

maimer ol physics or chemistry. For the "scientific educator" ol today (who is remarkably like the "hack to nature" Sophist of over two thousand years ago) a human being is, primarily, not a member ot a communit) whose members are united in the recognition of some object beyond themselves, but rather a specimen of a certain animal species. For such a being the supreme problem is to be. or to become, adapted to the immediate em ironment. The vast difference between a natural and a social environment is minimized.

SC R \V I' ING TI(A/) / T 1 O \ \ I. ME T //(>/) S

In schooling, then, "scientific method" must, as elsewhere, replace tradition. Traditional methods, including the method of tradition, are to be scrapped. "Tradition means progress", said Pope Pius XII in a recent allocution to the Italian nobles. This profound savim.; might well seem to be the veritable pons asinorum ot all candidates for the right to be heard on social and political questions. But it is not to the mind, as indeed it would appear to pass the comprehension, of the Newer Pedagogy. Headers of the present Report will find that a certain animal spontaneity, which the authors lose to talk about as "creativeness", and the like, is constantly exalted over learning from mere communication, the imparting ot "mere information, and so on.

It is not for nothing that this movement has. from its beginnings here in the acti\ ities of that University Reform Association of thirty odd years ago whose veterans arc now in power, assumed the form or a sustained attack upon the written examination. Examinations are stigmatized as representing the "mere ' reproduction ol memorized facts. So "Proficiency" has gone, leaving a grievous burden upon the teachers ol the present secondary-school subjects. And now "inatric." has been superseded l>v accrediting. Even in the university institutions, external is displaced more and more bv internal examination. While in place ol the method ol examination itself, our educational scientists offer us the "intelligence-test", which, we are told, is "not a test ol (acquired) knowledge, but a test of nathe ability" or "educability". (As il any test by question and answer could operate on anything but knowled

[5]

ATTACK ON FORMULATED KNOWLEDGE

But now the present Report makes it clear that the attack on examinations has reall) been an attack on examinable subjects, upon formulated or formulable knowledge regarded as an educational instrument. The agonies ol secondary-school teachers over pupils who have been emancipated from "Proficiency" are. it seems, properly to be taken as the condemnation ol what these teachers are trying to do. Formal rules ol grammar must go, together with the grammatical study ol native and foreign languages. Instead we must have "Communication lor the Citizen". Formal arithmetic must yield place to "Computation for the Citizen . (These titles are obviously inspired be Professor Lancelot I logben's book. "Science for the Citizen".' Above .ill the secondary school, whose traditional name "Grammar School" is to the Neweds like a red rag to a bull, being based on "instruction" in "subjects" by persons whose first qualification is that ot being themselves highly instructed in these subjects, must be liquidated. Che school must be given over to a vast round oi activities which duplicate and reflect the manifold activities of "the environment". So will it get "in touch with real life". Discipline is rejected as "authoritarian".

"SOCIAL STL DIES'' AND THE ADOLESCENT

Such is the educational philosophy of Naturalism, and such an its practical consequences. But a false philosophy is never consistent. Crying down in one place the methods of rational communication, instruction and examination, the New Educators arc soon found demanding that we treat the young as if they had the adult's full development of reason. This comes out, for instance, «hen we consider the programme oi "social" studies or activities that are to replace mathematics and languages as the staple ol post-primary schoolwork. People, it would seem, have not had in their schooldays sufficient practice in the handling of current politics, so the school must now give to such discussions the tune formerly allotted to formalities. Vccording to tin's philosophy, there is no difference between questions suitable for adults and

[6]

questions suitable for adolescents. Thus the distinction between secondary education and university education vanishes. And (as the Senate has just decided that a foreign language be no longer compulsory tor degrees in Alts) it seems that both are to be reconstructed on the single model of the W.E.A.

DO WN W I T 11 M /: M ORY !

This spurious rationalism has always played a leading part in the policy of New Education. It is the pretext for that familiar condemnation of "cramming", the memorizing of grammatical or arithmetical rules, of the use of mnemonics to secure the correct observation of those distinctions and varieties in verbal usage, without which no natural system can be mastered. To listen to these would be rationalists one would think that the inclusion of such a thing as memory in the human make-up has been a Divine Mistake. Man would have been a better creature without memory. And the practical corollary drawn is that nothing must be imparted to the pupil that he does not immediately understand. Any suggestion that principles may be at first received on trust, and committed to memory in the faith that their vital meaning will come home to the soul on the appropriate occasion or on mature reflection, must be summarily dismissed. "Man must apprehend before he can comprehend"; "his reach must exceed his grasp"-awav with all that! Is it not what our intelligentsia have called "Authoritarian"? As one of their major prophets. H. G. Wells, puts it. we want "men like gods", beings of "pure" reason subject to no authority but themselves.

T// E /' /i /N C IPLF. 0 V THE "SECOND WIND"

On all this anti-cramming campaign a comment made long ago by G. K. Chesterton in his hook "What's Wrong with the World?" is classic. He speaks of a "principle of which the modern mind has made a very inadequate study. It is perhaps more nearly paralleled by the principle of the second wind in walking. The principle is (his: that in everything worth having, even in every pleasure, there is a point of pain or tedium that must be survived so that the

[7]

pleasure may revive and endure. The joy ot battle comes after the first tear ol death : the joy of reading Virgil comes after the bore ol learning him ; the glow ot the sea-bather comes alter the icy shock ol the sea bath ; the success ol the marriage comes after the failure of the honeymoon. All human vows, laws and contracts are so mam ways ol surviving with success this breaking-point, this instant ol potential surrender. In everything on earth that is worth doing there is a stage when no one would do it except for necessity or honour. It is then th.it the Institution upholds a nan and helps him on to the firmer mound ahead".

The practical point for us in this principle ot the second wind ("plateaux ot learning" as contemporary psychologists tall il that, until it has been reckoned with. th< scrapping the Grammar school, with formal studies in mathematics and foreign languages, has tailed. People talk about letting the child study what interests him, and only (hat. lint how do we know what is going to interest him until tin' moi forcible process oi liberating his interests has taken place? Moreover, so long as this principle is true, all discoveries of "aptitudes", conclusive and all as they appear to Mr Bernard Shaw 'and Mr 11. Atmore, M.l', must remain ever subject to revision. Furthi i principle illustrated bv Chesterton is as true ot the learning of the duni of the genius. All mankind is incurably intellectual.

\ STARTLING CONTRADICTION

But of course this effortless reason to which our New Educators appeal against "cramming" is not human reason at all. It is that mere animal spontaneity which is a «hole world apart from the supremely-informed initiative of the path-breaker in the sciences ol Nature and of Man. . \nd here we encounter a startling contradiction in the programme of New Education. Its devotees are all tor "creative activit against the old swotting at "subjects". On the oil,, i hand, such subjects as they do allow are to he admitted on the sol- ground of utiliti getting "in touch with real lite". For tin \ proclaim as the moat pedagogical discovery reserved for our own day—it was also

[B]

vaunted In the Greek Sophists ot the fifth century 8.C.-that there is no such tiling as formal discipline. There is no "transfer ol training ; what you learn in one subject does not contribute to your facility in another field. Henceforward the "formal" subjects, mathematics and grammar, can only continue to be studied in schools through the power of "vested interests".

\(> M E V TA L J) / N ('//'/./ \ /■. f

All the little fledglings of our university departments ot Education are word-perfect in this doctrine, and in the consequent futility ot the secondary school. In fact, one gets the feeling that, if the doctrine were undermined, the occupants of those chairs of Education, which the State Department wished on our university colleers some years back, would have nothing left to talk about. Here is a specimen from an answer in last year's examination in Psychology :

"It was formerly considered that the mind consisted of numerous faculties—the faculty of reason, of imagination, faculty for languages, for sciences, etc. In accordance with this theory it was considered possible to train the memory by disciplining the mind, and subjects were included in the curriculum for this purpose. These subjects had been first introduced because of their contentvalue. Latin, e.g., was necessary tor those entering the Church and for reading the majority of the books. When other new subjects arose it became necessary to justify the continuance of the olderestablished subjects. It was then discovered that such subjects trained the memory.

"Although the faculty theory is not now held by any real psychologist, we still hear of such subjects being necessary to train the memory and discipline the mind . . . But it has been proved that:

1. Continued study in a subject does improve the memory for that subject.

2. Training in one subject does carry over to another subject, only in so far as these subjects are similar.

[9]

3. Training the memory for one subject does not train the memore lor another subject.

"Thus the time spent in 'disciplining the mind' or training the memory, with subjects which themselves contain no valuable sub-ject-matter, could be far better employed in learning a subject ol value."

SUB) E C r- M A T I I. R A \ I) I. A NGUA G E

'l'lic above doctrine itself which, when pushed to its logical conclusion, means that man has no power ot abstraction, in short, no mind at all. is now somewhat discredited in the best psychological circles. Dr. C. Fox, lecturer in Educational Psychology in the University of Cambridge, makes in his book. "Educational Psychology", a thorough canvass of the experimental evidence alleged in support oi tli" anti-formal movement in teaching. He finds that the conclusions, hostile to the traditional secondary school subjects that have been so widely drawn from that evidence, are dictated, not by the facts, but by the atomistic psychological doctrines that lie at the back of the theorists' minds. Dr. Fox concludes (p. 1 Sfi I: "Unless a task is carried out with insight into the configuration as a whole, the effects of training cannot be transferred. Otherwise, the theory of mental discipline is sound enough".

The shaky position in which the anti-formalist doctrine now stands may have something to do with the fact that it is nowhere explicitly mentioned in the Report, influential as it undoubtedly is in determining the Committee's recommendations. It may be pointed out here that the various "subject-matters" with which a man is from time to time called upon to deal, only come before him at all through the medium of language, and sometimes of mathematical symbols. So much so that it is impossible, without some study of languages and mathematics, to tell whether one subject is "similar" to another or not, much less to discover what they are in themselves.

My point here, however, is that the new educators, having rejected the doctrine of mental discipline, or "transfer of training" in the field where it is most plausible, namely the subjects of intellec-

[lo]

tual study, appear to be pinning their faith to it in that very sphere in which it would appear to be most difficult to sustain, namely that ot "creative activities". The argument seems to be that if a child is only allowed to make things instead of being drilled and disciplined in "subjects", he will in later life be more likely to show initiative and leadership in the other fields of adult interests. But docs anybody believe that the "initiative" that a boy shows in drawing faces will contribute to the originality he max 1 show in later lite in the field ol relativity-theory or in the discovery of the cure tor malaria? The only "transfer" that seems to exist in the Held ot practical activity is the moral one. namely that uncontrolled idleness in one department is very likely to "carry over" into other branches of life.

DANGER OF PROPAGANDA

One outstanding feature of that animal spontaneity which New Education confuses with reason in man is the degree to which it is open to suggestion and propaganda. Here is the danger lurking in those ideas of substituting "education for citizenship", and especially "tor democracy" for formal "subjects", which bulk so largelv in the Report.

V// E PRE S E N T O/i TII E PEli M A X ENT

A curriculum "in touch with real life" versus academic abstractions. Observe how. in this philosophv, the word "academic" is a favourite word of opprobrium (always excepting "academic freedom"—the right of educators to propagate left-wing views—in which case it is something to be worshipped). But do not we find that man gets "in touch with real life" by addressing himself not to the merely present, but to the permanent? It is just in this indirectness of his approach to the problems of the present that man is separated from the beasts.

In New-educational jargon the opposite to an "academic" course is a "cultural" one; some even have the nerve to say "liberal". New Education has taken over this tiresome word "cultural" from Anthropology (the science of man as a biological species) where it

[ll}

has the technical sense ol denoting the influence of the environment, as opposed to racial or hereditary factors. But as applied to school subjects, or "activities" (when is a man active?) it carries a further suggestion ol that which is non-professional, plus a strong dose of the "free-and-easy", in contrast with hard work, '"grinding" or "cramming". Now surel) the ease that distinguishes the operations of a man of culture, in the rational sense of the word, is the result of hard work; it has been won at last through much grammatical, mathematical or other analytical labour. Still more disturbing in the current recommendation of 'cultural" studies is the suggestion ol manipulating the "social" environment, "social control", "planning" and the like.

Til E FA T E (> /■• I' HO /•" ESSI O N AL SUB] I. CT S

Particularly hard today is the late of the academic subjects introduced into professional courses, originally by the governing bodies of professions for the very purpose that their members should be men of culture and not mere mechanics. Now New Education steps in and denounces such compulsory subjects of examination as "professional" as opposed to "cultural activities", as if they were mere tricks of the trade. What was introduced for the sake of culture is rejected in the name of culture, and insult added to injury.

In medicine, for example, the requirement that Latin be included among the subjects for entrance has been abolished, though it is still "recommended". It came out at the last election that the General Medical Council, which controls medical education, has a majority of Government nominees, and that these have recently been changed to get rid of "tory die-hards". So compulsory Latin must go, mainly because it is compulsory, and anything compulsory is obnoxious to the "scientific humanism" of Wells, Huxley, Hogben & Co. The "cultural" must be the free-and-easy. How much longer I wonder, will the Medical Council make the possession of a medical diploma "compulsory on those who would practice medicine?

Actually, of course. Chesterton's Principle of the Second Wind makes it clear that there is no antagonism in practice between hav-

[l2]

imj to study a subject to pass an examination or lor a professional qualification, and studying it from interest. The spur ol necessity is required to get you over the hurdle ol temporary boredom and give your interest a chance to <j;et formed.

THE NATIONALIZATION (>/■' THE CHILD

It is of the nature ot New Education to issue in a highly centralized bureaucracy, the nationalization of the school and the nationalization ol the child, and that in two principal ways. For one thing we have to reckon with its aggressively scientific pretensions. So long as the functions of the secondary school rest on the communication ol knowledge, concerned at this stage with the well-established principles and systems, hut nevertheless laying the foundation for the exploration of the more problematic regions of human experience at the university later on. so long the authorities are they who know their subjects. The natural control of these schools in the public interest is exercised by the university through its entrance examinations. Here the university is directly responsible to the community. It is no mere agency or creature of a State department. As a source of scholarly standards the government department has simpl) no standing at all. Examinations and their results are a test that the common man can understand and accept, and in which he has the means ol checking errors. Thus the old University ol New Zealand was at least a working example ol a National Guild. That was genuine academic freedom. Now it has been reduced to a mere cog in the wheels of the State education system by the operations ol men who climbed to power in the university as the champions of "academic freedom .

EA"T E N SION O I BUREAUCR AC Y

But take away the intellectual liases of schooling and you get at once a change of masters. \l] schools alike come under the incessant inspection of a central body of experts in "scientific pedagogy". These may know little enough about the subjects of instruction, and care less. They have to make endless sun eys in attempt' to isolate and measure the results of a multitude of experiments S(

[l3]

as to make applications of their "statistical technique". "You know," they say to the schoolmaster, "but we know how." Such a regime, to show it is doing something, must ever create more positions to be filled by experts. Every part of the child's school lifeis supervised and planned, games, societies and the rest. But the controlling standards here are not within the comprehension ol ordinary parents. Examinations are democratic but inspection is bureaucratic. In these circumstances the words "master of them that know" take on a grim significance undreamt of by Dante when he penned that notable appellation. The master of them that know, new style, is not Aristotle but the Director of Education. One further consequence of this growth of educational bureaucracy is that it will become harder and harder as time goes on to get men of any character and public standing to bestow their time and energy upon membership of the titular governing bodies of our various institutions of higher education.

r;/;-: totalitarian school I \ THE TOTALITARIA X S TA T E

The second great drift to bureaucracy that springs from the depreciation of the academic is that under it the school has to try to compete with each and every one of the principal agencies of society, in the field of that agency. The school has to become a miniature of, and a substitute for, society at large. This is called "getting in touch with real life". Historically, we know the school is an extension of the family, made for a special purpose. Schooling itself is but one branch of education, which means the whole upbringing of the young. But New Education tends to saddle the school, as a function of the State, with the- whole of education. This failure to observe the distinction between education and schooling becomes very amusing when we consider how the New Educators, when it suits their book, expatiate upon the utter difference there- is between true education and "mere" instruction in subjects. But now all the functions and agencies of society have to be brought within the school curriculum: the home, the municipality, theatre, radio, cinema, press, industry and commerce, par-

[l4]

liament. the law courts. The Church—? Ah, thereby hangs a tale. Not in New Zealand! We shall sec what the Report has to say about tli.it. Rut by and large we get the totalitarian school in the totalitarian state.

REACTION IN U.S.A.

This idea that, instead of controlling the various educational agencies of society in their own fields and leaving the school to its own business of promoting sound learning, we should rather get the school to grab the lot is today by no means on the looting of mere theory. It has for many years been in operation in America under the name of "progressive education" (or. as William James called it. "soft pedagogy"). And there is today a growing body of critical opinion in that country to the effect that under this regime the higher schools and colleges are doing less well what was formerly regarded as their special work. A noteworthy critique ot the results ol the omnicompetent school and the system ol free-elec-tives in university courses is formulated in such works ol President R. M. Hutchins of Chicago University as "The Higher Learning in America" and "No Friendly Voice". Under his and associated leadership the reaction towards fundamental studies is strong. The failure in the provision ol suitable recruits for the professions is an outstanding charge against Progressive Education. Readers here will recall the severe strictures of Admiral Nimitz upon its products as material for officers for the forces. The youngsters coming along could not formulate clear orders, and lacked a foundation of mathematical principles. Even before the last war in France the Comite des Forges was complaining to the Minister of Public Instruction that with the decay of Latin studies their recruits tor managerial positions were less and less able to write concise reports.

I pass now to the actual proposals that have provoked the proscut discussion. Il will be necessary to devote some attention to the politics (in a wide sense) ol the situation. 1 do not attribute a conscious acceptance ol the foregoing philosophy in all its implications to every member of Mr Mason's Committee. 1 do sa\

[ls]

that the acceptance or rejection of that philosophy by the people will decide the question.

A MISLEADING ACCOUNT

The Committee's order of reference states that the problem of drawing up a new post-primary curriculum is the sequel to the University's action in abandoning "matric." and adopting the accrediting system for entrance, and the Report repeats this. I say that this account of the problem is thoroughly misleading. Accrediting was advocated on the pretext of freeing the schools from the domination of their teaching work by the inflexible demands of the matriculation course in "academic" subjects, and of enabling different schools to follow their own bent. The mere abandonment of "matric." was to do this. But what the Committee proposes is a "core" of "cultural" and social studies and activities, to be compulsory in all post-primary schools. This is to occupy from threefifths of the teaching time in the first year to two-fifths in the third and subsequent years. The "special" subjects ol particular types of school, including those for the school certificate and for university entrance, are to be squeezed into the time remaining.

ACCREDITING LEAVES A CLEAR F I E L II

It follows that those university teachers and school teachers of "academic" subjects who let their support for the accrediting system be bought by promises of a higher standard, through the provision of a four years' course, one beyond School Certificate, in place oi the prevailing three alter which they could not induce their pupijs to refrain from "having a go at matric."—that these good people have been hoodwinked. Hoodwinked, that is to saw unless they were prepared to swallow the philosophy of New Education and join in the wishful thinking by which the New Educators on the Committee would prove that a shorter time at language's and mathematics in the atmosphere of the "cultural core" is more effective than a longer time devoted to these subjects by themselves. Perhaps these teachers will be a bit more careful

[l6]

in future about the kind ol people they elect to University governing bodies, and a bit more suspicious of red-herrings like "academic freedom .

rll E PUBLIC B E DA M Y E D.'

No. a "common cultural core" curriculum is no natural sequel to accrediting. But what is true is that the adoption of accrediting gave a clear Held to New Education to impose its theories upon post-primary s<.hoolin<j\ It did this by side-tracking the demand of the public, ol parents and employers, for the matriculation examination .is a certificate ol general education and qualification tor a wide range of appointments. As old Vanderbilt put it, "The public be damned !

The Committee airily dismisses the public demand as the imposition upon the examination of "a dual purpose". What evidence can they ad\ ance in support of the implied charge that the examination was being diverted to a purpose alien to its nature? They offer none. What reason is there to suppose that the educational qualification for entry into business is different from that for entry upon university studies? Echo answers.

But while accrediting is thus only a pretext for neo-pedagogical racketeering, there is. on the contrary, a real problem in the ease. It has nothing to do with accrediting. It is the problem created by the action of the Government in raising the age of compulsory schooling to fifteen. No longer can the primary school handle the mass of older pupils. On the other hand it is presumed that, with this addition to its numbers, the ordinary secondary school would slum a great majority of pupils unlikely to profit by its standard curriculum. The position would have become absurd.

/•( RE LI DESTRVC TIVE ATTITUDES

Now it is noteworthy thai this problem is not peculiar to New /.aland. In Greal Britain also the school age is being raised, and the consequi nc< s an reflected in the English Education Bill now before the House ol Commons. A study of the two schemes will

[17]

show that, with the doubtful exception of its advocacy of the "community centre", the New Zealand programme makes no positive addition to the English approach to this problem of the new postprimary school population. All that it has to draw upon is those purely destructive attitudes towards existing secondary school methods whose philosophic basis I have sketched: anti-grammar, anti-examination, anti-intellectual, animalistic.

THE "CORE"

The Committee prescribes that, in post-primary schools of every type alike, three-fifths of the time in the first year, coming down to two-fifths in the third and subsequent years, shall be devoted to the "cultural core". (This means, as we saw, that any private school discovered by the Department's inspectors to be ignoring the "core' would be liable to be deregistered, and thereafter the parents of its pupils up to fifteen prosecuted.) The core consists of:

(a) English language and literature. This is to exclude formal grammar, but includes "comprehension" and the appreciation of literature.

(b) Social science. This is to be an integrated course of history, civics, geography, and some "descriptive" economics. It is to be related to school-life generally, and especially to the internal government of the school. Particular reference is directed to the growth of democratic institutions. In history the emphasis is to be on the understanding of contemporary life.

(c) General "Science".

(d) Elementary Mathematics.

(e) Music.

(f) A handicraft or one of the fine arts.

(g) Physical education.

(I would point out that it is quite possible to oppose the whole method of a "common core" solution of the present problem, and yet support (say) the three last of the above items.)

This "core" will form the major portion of the work for the "school certificate", which the public has been manoeuvred into

[lB]

having to accept in place of "matric". But as the principal parts of the "core" are not examinable subjects, the proposal is tli.it. apart from English, the qualification be obtained by accrediting by the headmaster.

This procedure is subversive of secondary schooling in its recognized form, not merely because of the limited time tor the "academic" subjects, which ha\ e to come first if they are to be properly done at all. but because of the opposite methods of attack in the academic subjects and in the "cultural" subjects—sometimes meeting in the same subject in different parts of the time-table. It will, unless the teachers indulge in "bootlegging" practices, be the formal subjects that will suffer. The one freedom denied by the champions of "academic freedom" is the freedom to be academic.

On the other hand anyone who recognizes in the proposed curriculum a concession to the weaker members will realize that a pupil who has profited by a standard "academic" course will be able and may be left to acquire the "cultural" part by himself, or so much of it as is not positively harmful.

V // E K N GLISH SOLUTION

Now to England. The great English "Public Schools" are more or less the model for the modern secondary school. We are all familiar, by way of the radio and the gramophone, with the popularized attack on "the old school tie". In the book I cited above, Chesterton makes the point that the critics of the Public Schools commonly attack precisely the wrong thing about them ; they attack the curriculum, which is democratic; not the class-spirit. which is plutocratic. (Though, on this latter point, compare the recent report of a group of English Labour members on their sojourn in some of the Public Schools.)

No such mistake is made in the Bill now before the House of Commons. This tackles the new situation through the provision of three types of secondary school or curriculum for pupils over the age of eleven, in every case to be free for all. These it calls respectively the Grammar School (which is preserved intact in the manner of its kind), the Modern School, which covers a wide range

[l9]

embracing the literary and the practical, and the Technical School, which also we know here ahead)'.

Lest anyone object that such a division is too expensive for a small country like New Zealand, it need onl) he pointed out that in the English plan these different "schools" may be under the one root. Indeed the first two types largel) correspond to the "Latin and the "Modern" forms in our secondare schools here. 'I he main change involved is the systematic selection ol pupils at the age ol eleven for the diverse courses, though due regard is to be had lor parents' wishes. It should be added that facilities .ire provided for the transfer of a child from a school of one type to another accordingly as later experience may suggest.

.\ N I UP(lli T .\ N T CO M P Mil S() \

The outstanding points on which the New Zealand scheme differs from the English are wholly attributable to the influence gi\ en here to the destructive dogmas of New Education :

1. England preserves the grammar school ; New Zealand liquidates it. According to England tin fully academic course is essential for some; according to New Zealand it is good for nobody.

2. England, in the Norwood Report, insists that foreign languages should not be excluded from any type of secondary school at the "Lower School" stage, and emphasizes their value at later stages. New Zealand restricts them to the side-line course for university entrance, from which they may be entirely omitted at pleasure (thanks to the Senate) and leaves them too late in the course to be developed to an) purpose.

3. New Zealand builds its edifice on a foundation oi "education for citizenship" or "education for democracy". England, through the Norwood Report, saws, with respect to the inclusion of such "special subjects" as education for citizenship and public affairs, that the child is to be considered as a potential and not an actual citizen, and (hat nothing but harm can result from attempts to interest pupils prematurely

[2o]

in matters that impl\ the experience ol an adult. Such subjects might be specifically taught to sixth-form pupils. For the others much might be clone by comment and digression and by appropriate illustration through ordinary school subjects.

1 will not criticize here the assumption common to the two countries in raising the school leaving age. namely that modern machinery has transported the world from an "age of scarcity" to an "age ol abundance . On this point I am satisfied to leave my readers to wait and see. I would, however, confess to a very great respect lor the urge in youngsters to go out and earn something in return tor their parents care. As a way ol "getting in touch with real lite" earning a living makes school-courses in "descriptive economics look silly. Nor is the implied demand for responsibility b\ anv means confined to the "non-academic child".

BROAD I /i A INING

Herein, probablv, lies the grain of truth under the wishful thinking ol the Committee on the subject ot University entrance, av that entrants with the broad training provided by the propos: il "core" will make better university students than those drilled in the academic subjects ol the existing secondary-school course. The grain ol truth is provided by the case ol the "parttime student", despised ot universit) reformers and marked down for liquidation, whose experiences in earning a living give him a more serious and responsible attitude to his college work than the gay lull-timer is apt to show. Hut this again is no product ol courses in "social science" or adventures in self-government in school.

\///7( I) i: TO PARTICULAR SUBJECTS

Let us now consider the new-educational attitude to some ot the particular subjects oi the standard school curriculum. \t .1 recent conference with the Auckland Education Board as reported in the V.Z. Herald, the Director ot Education, Dr. Beeby, answering critics who had compared favourably, in respect ol standards

[2l]

actually attained, the older methods of teaching arithmetic with those now in vogue, stated that under the old abstract methods children were set to work on problems on stocks and shares. Presumably this is "out of touch with real life", in that few pupils will ever become stockbrokers (not to mention the influence of such examples in suggesting that dealing in stocks and shares is permissible).

Here of course is the denial of the human mind's capacity for abstraction. It is maintained that for the pupil the arithmetical lesson can rank as a lesson on the illustrative material only, not on the arithmetical principles and methods concerned. There is no "transfer of training" to other problems in percentages.

In the course of the same campaign against formal arithmetic we find inspectors admonishing teachers that rates and taxes, on the other hand, are things the pupil will encounter in "real lite ahead. Hence the arithmetical principles of percentages may be relied upon to emerge "naturally" in the lessons on rates and taxes in the course on Civics.

Here, on reflection, we seem to he laced with the equal and opposite doctrine that the human mind, left to itself, has an unlimited power of abstraction. (Of course Hat contradictions are in this philosophy quite in order.) Only let the child be gently led into the presence of the appropriate material and he will evolve for himself the mathematical or other principles concerned.

|The Curricnlar Committee lean very heavily upon this doctrine in their demand for a "cultural" course in English that shall exclude formal grammar on principle but shall bathe the recipient in literary masterpieces. The idea is that it only the child he exposed to the influence ot a sufficiency ol these creations he will acquire by himself the principles ol style, and write and speak correctly and beautifully, without being forced through abstract grammatical analysis. |

Now, in the above "realistic' arithmetic, what are we to suppose is accomplished? Is it claimed that by the use of material drawn from "the child's own experience" his latent mathematical ability will be liberated, so that he can "transfer" it to other fields? If so.

[22]

it must be pointed out that the school-child has no more personal experience ol paying rates and taxes than he has of dabbling in stocks ami shares. Both .ire in the future.

But the alternative impression is stronger, that no "transfer", or liberation oi mathematical competence, is expected in either case, bather the onl\ arithmetic to be "learnt" is that enshrined in the habit of paying rates ami taxes correctly. The mental realization ol arithmetic principles is not required of "the citizen". No allowance is made lor the consideration that there may be principles of arithmetic that are illustrated in problems on stocks and shares, but not in rates anil taxes. Beyond all these lurks the suggestion that it is the function of the school to shepherd the child into a social order in which there are rates and taxes galore but no dealings in stocks and shares.

I' II on /■: T1 C S P E L / /N G

One aspect of New-educational methods,, now at work in the primary schools, oi which there have been definite complaints by parents and employers, is the consequences of "phonetic spelling". U hen confronted with such specimens as Wensday, Janary, frate, they find the children have been told that "it is enough il the meanclearly conveyed". Hut. we may well ask. the meaning ol what? [fan) meaning is conveyed at all, it must be that Wensday stands tor that which is correctly spelt Wednesday, and Irate for that which is correctly spelt freight. Somebody has got to know the correct use il the approximate one is to have any vestige ol significance. Evil is parasitic on good. But now what provision is there in our educational system that anybody shall know the correct use? We have here another case ol the new-educational principle of eliminating tradition, going hack and starting from scratch. Language, it is stated, was spoken before it was written, therefore iaturai" method ol learning it is for the child to go hack to the oral stage and ignore all the interconnections that have developed between the oral and written elements in language making it what it is today, as which it must be learnt.

[2.3]

NO/' TO LANG I AG E 7 /, AC II E /i S

We saw that in the Report the study ol foreign languages is, along with essential mathematics, removed from its central place iii the secondary school course and made, like the latter, one of the options subsidiary to the "cultural core". The Report, however, devotes much space to these optional courses in detail, giving a set of arguments in favour ol each. This may offer a sop to existing teachers ol languages by seeming to justify their existence. The procedure here is highly deceptive, however, in that it passes o\ er the question of the weight to be given to these arguments. Might not those in favour of foreign languages, for example, show such studies to lie so valuable, for all pupils or for some, as to justify their replacing the "core", or part of it? The Report does not say. does not ask. Teachers of languages, in evaluating such Greek gifts, might well keep their minds on what they were told, by the inspectors sent out to "soften up" tile schools in preparation tor the Report, about the need existing teachers would have to scrap or largely supplement their existing qualifications, 'let the Minister says the Report is purely at the stage ol discussion.

'TIIAD IT lON IS \I.W A IS \\ H<l \C "

We 1 ia\ c seen too, that there is competent psychological authority for the position that the traditional doctrine that mathematics and foreign languages have a unique value as an educational instrument is not exploded by the experiments on "transfer ot training", but is unimpaired by them when they are properly interpreted. But the Report, by verbal innuendo, begs the question in opposition to formal studies. It speaks (p. 64) ol the task ot the schools in cutting loose language-study from those "trivial and irrelevant arguments which arc all too often advanced in its favour (the argument from tradition, from social prestige, from so-called utility)" as opposed to its "intrinsic interest and worth . Tradition, of course, is always wrong. The systematically ambiguous word "utility" is made to do heavy duty here. It covers at the very least both "usefulness for passing examinations in which languages carry a lot of marks", and utility tor the despised ami rejected "mental training".

[24]

Parents also come in lor a side-wipe as a "reactionary" factor. (p. 69.) "There will still he a certain deadweight of popular prejudice to be put away . . . parents are likely to view the change at first with misgiving." Note the "at first". Observe too the cool assumption that parents will ha\ e no voice in determining whether or not the precious scheme shall come into existence at all. (Logic and philosophy support the parents.)

A V OTHER CO \ T B iDICTIO V

Having thus begged the question in favour of a certain doctrine in new psychology without which their whole scheme falls flat, the Committee proceed to give the "true" arguments for the study of foreign languages in schools. The '"social" interest is naturally extolled. Such studies enable us to understand other peoples. Here they differ from "the knowledge gained through mere acquisition of facts" about a people just as (mere) musical appreciation differs from actual performance. (This is a nasty slap at the "core", but it occurs forty pages further on, so nobody will notice it.)

One fundamental argument is given. The study of a foreign language we are told, leads to an "increased appreciation of our own language-and an increased facility in its use". But what weight is to be given to this argument? Might it not tell against the exclusive importance assigned to the English compulsion in all the courses ? "What do they know of English who only English know ?"

THE LANGUAGE QUESTION

Conspicuous by its absence is any reference to the essential educational function of translation. Is not the essential act of intelligence that of recognizing the same matter when presented in the dress of alternative systems of symbols ? Translation is a unique test of intelligence, indispensable when the systems are historical growths.

Parents and teachers of languages must, however, realize that the Committee is quite capable of adopting all such arguments and adding them to their stock, but will still restrict their force to the support of languages as mere subsidiary options to the "cultural core".

[2s]

What about the attitude of the children themselves in all this r Don't we find that the children themselves know when thev are making progress in the standard disciplines ? Thev realize in themselves that they are accomplishing something. How are they to know when thev have overcome difficulties, achieved mastery, made progress in the non-examinable topics or activities of the "cultural core"? Why should thev be so largely deprived of the experience of growing, measurable masti

"SOCIAL SCIENCE" SUBI ECT S

Vast questions arc started by the introduction of "social science" subjects in the compulsory "cultural core". The Committee displays at the outset its philosophical bias towards naturalism. It lays down the principle (p. 23) that "education must be a process of gradually widening horizons, from family to local community, from community to nation, from nation to world". This geometrical analogy would be sound if man were a mere animal bodv in a physical environment. When we take account of his rational soul we see the fallacy. The thinking of a human being does not start with himself as centre and work gradually outwards to the stars. Because he is an embodied soul, the natural order of his thoughts is to start somewhere half-way and work back and forwards between centre and circumference, or rather between near-centre and near-circumference. For example, the moralitv that a child learns in the family circle is one that applies to his behaviour to all men. He learns later the regulations of the national state to which he belongs, and these are narrower, not wider, in their scope than the principles of family life.

H ISTORY AND CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS

So, too, the human interest in history is no mere prolongation backwards of the latest gossip over the fence. Speaking of its "socialized" history and "humanized" geography the Report says (p. 25) that "the main emphasis should be placed on the understanding of contemporary life". This seems to encourage the pernicious tendency, so completely enforced by recent prescriptions

[26]

in the Universit) introduced at the instance of the reforming party, to narrow down history to the immediate antecedents of contemporary problems. It does not go far enough back to reveal how present projects may be mere revivals in ignorance of fallacies exploded lon<_; ago. Special reference is to be made, says the Commute, to the growth of democratic institutions. Experience shows that this is apt to mean in practice teaching children that the only thing that counts in human history is the dragging down of leaders, in one form or another, and the doctrine that power is inherently evil!

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTI O N

In this connection, the position of the Committee as to religious instruction is most confusing. They do not consider themselves called upon or entitled to make any recommendation on this matter. Yet the "social" subjects of the "core" have large religious implications. At the University level, for example, the University of New Zealand has a regulation that a student may claim exemption from attendance at lectures on the ground of religious scruples. Yet the Committee imposes on all, at the post-primary stage, attendance upon courses in a whole range of such subjects.

Controversy in these fields is normal, and we cannot leave the question of propaganda out of their consideration. We cannot afford to forget what has occurred in totalitarian Europe, in the systematic indoctrination or "conditioning" (new-psychology word) of the voung to render them an uncritical bulwark of a social system specified in advance. Certainly in these schools social subjects form the "core" of the instruction and "the main emphasis placed upon the understanding of contemporary life".

BETWEEN TWO STOOLS

The Committee could not, of course, ignore the plausibility of such comparisons, and is prepared with an answer of sorts. It is only "descriptive" economics that are to be introduced (the despised "mere acquisition of facts?"). Its "socialized" or "humanized" history, geography, and "science" are altogether "factual" and

[27]

harmless. When we take this together with its attitude on religion, we see how the Committee falls between two stools on the matter of that which is the absolute foundation of its whole scheme. The course simply cannot both be so harmless as to avoid the reproach of propaganda and be of that vital educational importance that alone can justify its being made the central core of the whole.

It may be said, for instance, that you will not in these courses be taught for what side to vote, but only how to avoid making vour voting-paper informal. (Make things easy for returningofficers and other officials. Education for bureaucracy I) If so, it is certain that children capable of the "academic" course could be relied on to pick these things up tor themselves. Why waste their time?

WHAT IS "EDUCATION FOR DEM (> C /i A C Y " ?

The Committee have much to say about education for democracy. "Education for democracy" can be as totalitarian as education for Nazism. When democracy is defined in purely economic terms, indeed, it cannot but be so. It is widely insinuated today that if vou cannot make socialism for man you can set about making man for socialism. Such a course argues a despair of human reason. Our planners, when they find that men as they are do not prove amenable to the plans laid down for them, do not accept this as an intimation that there is something wrong with the plans. That would be the democratic method. But the planners take their stand on the infallibility of their plan. At their most generous thev are prepared to let the older generation die off, and plan the new generation on lines such that they will make the plan work, "and like it". This is the negation of democracy, and of essential morality. It treats humanity not as an end in itself, but as a mere means.

The ancient philosopher Aristotle had something very pertinent to say about "education for democracy". He allowed that the stability of every political regime must rest, in the last resort, upon bringing up the young in its principles. But, he said, men are often fatally mistaken about what that education is. Democracies commonly give their children too much liberty, oligarchies give

[2B]

them too much money. So both regimes are brought to ruin. Education lor democracy, meaning an education that will tend to preserve democratic states, is a very different thing from education in or by democracy, through a premature realization of the aims of democracy.

SUPERFICIAL CONCEPTION <>/■' DEMOCRACY

Now there is not a little in the present Report that would tend lo convict its authors of just that superficial conception of democratic education that Aristotle found so destructive of the democracies of his time. Of the "cultural core" they say (p. 23) that it "should be basically related to school lite generally, and especially to methods ol internal government". Further, that "the school S its tasks doubly difficult—is at war with itself—if it tries to instil respect tor democratic virtues in an environment that is heavily authoritarian". Remember here that it has proved impossible to extract from our left-wingers any other meaning for tin'-, word "authoritarian" than "the exercise ol authority in any form . Authority is an evil in itself. You can only learn to be a ioerat, it appears, by acting the democrat from your cradle up: b) having "self-government in school", "project methods" and so forth.

The prevalent atmospherics of schooling as an organ ol "social planning" bring forcibly before us the qu( stion of the exact nature ol that process. "Planning" carries a strong suggestion ol the scientific. Russia in the early days of the Bolshevik revolution was euphemistically described as "the planned economy", the prototype ol all others since, or in prospect. But the attitude here is the re\ erse ol scientific. The essence ol experimental method is that any plan or thorv is submitted to the test ol experience, which is held adequate to show whether the plan works or not. If it does, you ma> go on with it for the time being; il it does not you discard or modih it. On the other hand in "social planning" no failure to work epted. \t most you merely mark off your programme into units "five-year" or what not—so that "the human material" may ha\ e got used to the present instalment in readiness for the next. No

[29]

limitation is considered, barring the mere time-lag in human "conditioning". Remember what our Report has said about parents being likely to view the change with misgiving "at first". It is not to be thought of that they may be right.

THE PATH Of ED! CATIONAL REFORM . . . . ~ ,■ , . - 1 - I - " • x - r-J

Such has been the path of educational "reform" in New Zealand. Take the adoption ot accrediting for university entrance in place of "matric". At the conference previously mentioned, Dr. Beeby explained, that District High Schools, at present denied the accrediting privilege, could proceed to submit their claims to it for next year, now that liaison-officers, whose duty it was to examine the fitness of schools for the "pri\ ilege", had been appointed. Vsked wh\' a list of approved schools should already have been drawn up for this year before these appointments had even been made. Dr. Beeby's reply was ominous. The accrediting system, he said, had already been discussed for fifteen or twenty years.

Apparently there was no excuse for further "delay . Some sort of a start had to be made the moment the Senate had been induced to pass the scheme. Von see the idea. The interests demanding accn diting had to be compensated for the waste of their time on public discussion. There is no possibility allowed for that discussion might have shown the need for greater caution, or even have discredited the plan altogether. Certainly the accrediting party has never taken the slightest notice of criticism, but rather set itself to remove the critics from the Senate and build up, for example by the electioneering use of hypocritical slogans about "academic freedom" for gullible young graduates, a favourable majority on that body. Meanwhile parents, the critics, and the public generally must be disciplined for their culpable delay in accepting "the ine\ [table .

A SINGLE PHILOSOPHY AT WORK

The reference to fifteen or twenty years shows that, in the sorry history of our scholastic standards over that period, a single aim, a single philosophy, lias been at work. Because the university's

[ 30 ]

matriculation examination was the stronghold of public opinion within the system, the coercion of public opinion had to be effected through operations in and upon the university. The overseas examination ol candidates for degrees was given up.it the pass stage; options were multiplied in the entrance examination, the a<j,e tor provisional matriculation without examination was reduced to 21; a system ot scaling the entrance marks was adopted by which the same number, or proportion, of candidates would be passed every year; facilities were granted for aegrotat passes in subjects for degrees, even at the honours stage; the requirement that candidates lor degrees should pass in at least two subjects at each sitting was abrogated; the examining of degree candidates at stage 1 for Arts and Science degrees was delegated by the University to the several colleges, squeezing out the former district annual college examination lor "terms ; the teachers of any subject in New Zealand were given the option of conducting the advanced and honours examinations'themselves; finally, ostensibly as a "war measure", tin's option was made mandatory on all departments, and the overseas examination completely disappeared. Changes in the London office of the University, as reported in the Press, give a lead in the direction of a permanent abolition. Now the last compulsion, of a foreign language, in the Arts degree has been abolished, largely through a unionised agitation by primary teachers on the simple id that they had failed to pass in a language, and so missed the degree. The accrediting system for entrance has been adopted. What the schools are expected to teach for university entrance is indicated by the contents ol the syllabus for those entrants not accredited, and from this again the foreign language compulsion has been eliminated, and "cultural" (i.e. non-grammatical) English made the only absolute compulsion.

At no in this development, extending over main- years now. but accelerated towards the end as opposition on the Senate was liquidated, lias the least provision been made to set up standards by which the success or failure of any step in the process could be mi asured, and the project abandoned in the latter event. In other words, we see in operation not science but fanaticism.

[3l]

\HGVM E N I A GAI NS T E A AMI NA 7 /0 N S

The main argument for accrediting, as addressed to the public, has been this: What, it is said, can an examiner know of the real capacity of a child whom lie tests by a paper of two or three hours duration as compared with the pupil's own teacher who knows his record for years. Before considering in the light of this argument how the accrediting system really works, we may observe that the argument itsself is open to strong objection. First of all, the object of the examination is to find out the examinee's capacity to marshal his resources to meet the problem of the moment, at the moment. This is what will be meant by and judged as his capacity in .ill the walks of later life. Secondly the teacher may "know his pupil . 1 lit that is not enough, even for him. He requires assurance, lie wants to "know that he knows", and that assurance he can only get from an outside opinion, the more "outside" the better. This is also the answer to the sob-stuff so liberally poured out in the past by I niversity Reform on behalf of professors who were alleged to suiter in their professional dignity by having their students examined by somebody else.

Actually, accrediting, for university entrance, will be determined by the summed-up result of a series of school examinations in the csairse of the year, each with its own "finality" tor the examinees. (The "cultural core" for school certificate is of course not examinable: there the intuitions of the teacher will have full scope. possibly to the delight of parents!) One infers that each accrediting school «ill send up every \ ear a certain number reading from op of the list, determined by the size of the school. This is to be inferred from what Dr. Beeby said about the impossibility of giving the accrediting privilege to small schools, no matter how good their previous record. Because with "small" numbers you could not rely on the same proportion reaching a certain standard ev< rv year—there would be "good years" and "bad years". It the Distr ct High Schools have any hopes after this that their applications lor next year will be fruitful, these hopes should be Email) extinguish ;d by the consideration that the Government is going to provide bursal ies to take their best pupils to the big centres to the schools with

[32]

the accrediting privilege. (It has not been stated if these bursaries will be available at schools, however big, that refuse to avail themselves of the "privilege" and stick to the examination.)

A N ORGY O F S TAT I S TI C S

It is evident that the chief operations under the accrediting system will be those "statistical" devices in which government officials delight, and whose introduction into the educational system and elsewhere provide so many of them with jobs. What are they worth ? It is one thing to sav that the smaller the school the less "probable" is it that it will turn out a constant number or proportion of pupils of a given standard of attainment per annum. But that they have discovered what number of pupils in a school suffices to ensure that the number at a certain standard will be constant from one year to another is something for which our bureaucratic "statisticians" have no evidence, or, if they have, theyhave never produced it. When you hear such persons talking gliblv about "the influence of large numbers", you want to ask them the question: When is a number "large" 0

CLOSED DOWN ON RELIGION

We saw that the Committee reached an impasse on the subject of religion in the school. While its view of the school as an epitome, replica, or even substitute for, society at large—the totalitarian school in the totalitarian state—would necessitate a place for religion and the Church, the presupposition of a secular state educational system compels an abandonment of the whole question. The English bill, on the contrary, would amend the existing law so as to emphasize and provide for the essential place of religious instruction in education, and enable denominational schools to play their full part in the new development. It goes much further than previous measures in supporting by state funds those schools which carry out the principle that the religious beliefs of the parents are the determinants of upbringing, and therefore of schooling as a part thereof.

This has an important connection with the present withdrawal

[33]

of our University from its public duty of furnishing the standards of schooling. If we let that function, for which it is not fitted, revert to the State department, then that means that, in respect ot curriculum, all schools are State schools. The special care that religious foundations have in the fostering of the scholarly subjects will be defeated at the source. The university must be recalled to its public duty. It cannot afford to be reduced to the status of an item in the system of "state education". (How long was it before the University of New Zealand gave the "registered secondary schools" representation on the Entrance Board?) England fairly shows that the denominational school is going to endure, that "state' education" pure and simple is not the education of the future. While a materialistic conception of human nature readily commends itself to a state-department as promising greatest ease of "statistical" and other manipulation, such an estimate of what it is to be a man is repugnant to religion. No doubt the State must ever have the duty of stepping in to correct notorious abuses. But "state-education" as we have known it may prove to have been but a passing phase. In any ease, it should be nothing to the university that one school is a State school and another is not. On the contrary, an autonomous university, parallel to, not derivative from, police-government in the direct representation ot the community, has the inalienable duty to the community of examining the schools, or their products.

THE WRONG BUSINESS

It is onlv a piece of presumption for the Curricula]' Committee to describe its work as a sequel to the adoption of accrediting and the removal of the incubus of "matric". Its business was to define suitable schooling for the new post-primary school population. The true import of the reference to accrediting is that the Committee, having been enabled with the connivance of the University authorities to side-step the demand of parents and employers for the public' examination, seized the opportunity to impose on the schools the next item on the anti-intellectual programme oi New Education. the "common cultural core" system. Far from freeing the schools,

[34]

thev sought to take away from them the one respectable form of "academic freedom", the freedom to be academic.

It is no use pointing to the elaborate syllabuses they draw up for the academic "options", if they don't provide the time in which these may be adequately treated. Remember, too, that teachers of these would require the same careful and exclusive attention to the obtaining of their qualifications in these subjects as thev do now. however much of their teaching time had to be devoted to the "cultural" rubbish. Yet at the inspectors' "softening-up" interview with the teachers before the Report was made public, the teachers were told that their existing qualifications would in future be of little value and new ones must be acquired; that Latin, for example, was doomed.

COM Ml T TE D OR NOT?

One disgraceful feature of the whole situation, indeed, is the way in which teachers have been officially led to the view that the provisions of the Report are something that "is coming", and that changes in accordance therewith had better be initiated now. That, for instance, translation from English into Latin is to be eliminated. But no one familiar with the technique of modern bureaucracy will be surprised at such phenomena.

In one important respect these suggestions have a measure of truth to fact. Mr Mason, indeed, has stated in issuing the Report that the Government is not committed to its proposals and that discussion is deferred. This might suggest to the average citizen that legislation is deferred, and will be subject to the recognized safeguards of parliamentary debate and hearings before parliamentary committee. Let it then be clearly understood that there is nothing in the Committee's recommendations, drastic and revolutionary as they are, that needs legislation to bring it into effect. The whole matter can be enforced as it stands by the mere issue by the Director of Education of instructions to inspectors of schools. And, as I said before, for the purposes of this Report, all schools are State schools.

[3s]

AN OMINOUS Sl l

Still more ominous here is what Mr Mason has to say in announcing an omnibus conference to deal with certain other branches of education tor August next. "Progress in education," he says, "cannot be brought about by Acts and Regulations, but only by a common understanding between parents, teachers and administrators, and a common purpose to do our best for the children in our care." When one thinks of the actual conditions under which the semblance of such agreement is commonly reached, when only "organized" voices are heard (the present Report embodies almost literally a resolution passed by the Secondary Teachers' Association in 1936), one is driven to recall such democratic truths as that legislation is the great safeguard against arbitrary government, but further that the first duty of Parliament is not even to legislate, but to criticize and check the administration. Mr Mason cannot complain if, at this time of clay, people see in his elevated language about common purposes versus Acts and Regulations, just another totalitarian device to side-track Parliament.

[36]

AN OMINOUS SIGN

Still more ominous here is what Mr Mason has to say in announcing an omnibus conference to deal with certain other branches of "ti .■„ ~,] jfirtr» " Vio cq\/c ran-

Please return this item to:

Document Supply Services

National Library of New Zealand

PO Box 1467

Wellington

Supplied at no charge from the collections of the National Library of New Zealand