EDUCATION NEEDS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 51, Issue 261, 18 August 1931, Page 6

EDUCATION NEEDS.

THE LABOUR LEADER'S VIEWS. (Per Press Association). GREYMOUTH, August 17. The new school building at Blackball was officiallv opened by Mr H. E. Holland, M.P., this afternoon. Mr Holland, who apologised lor the unavoidable absence of the Minister of Education (the Hon. H. Atmore), said every one of the great social services of the Dominion was of extreme importance, but none was greater than the service of education. In every department of human activity, whether political or economic, social or scientific, the education system must have a determining influence. The measure of success or otherwise that would attend every great social experiment, and every courageous adventure into the realms of law-making, would depend upon whether their standards of knowledge were set on high or low levels individually and collectively. Levels of knowledge were determined by the effectiveness of their educational institutions, and because an educated citizenship was always a nation's best asset it was a nation's duty to see that the widest possible range was given to the work of the educationists to this end. There would be a general aversion to any line of policy that might tend to sacrfice the efficiency of the national system of education of what might be considered the exigencies of the financial situation.