EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 245, 14 October 1918, Page 8

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE

■ » TRAINING THE CHILDREN. A meeting of the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute was held in tbe Concert Chamber of the Town Hall on Friday, The Mayor ..;:"_ It had been said, Mr Gunson remarked, tbat the cbild was the bent asset of the sat—a. If that was so, it naturally followed that the child was worthy the best attention of the nation. It appeared to hln, first that in order to make tbe essential progres in education, they should raise the status of teachers so that a proper Inducement might be offered to the best brains of the community.

Mr B. IV. Just, organising secretary of the New —»_nd Educational InsUtute, said the Institute represented tbe Interests of educat_a and had been le existence for *— ? eal ?' Be fought he could say definitely that every educational reform placed on the statute books had been placed there as the result of the efforts of the Institute, lt had been said that the time was not opportune for instituting educational reform, but all questions were more or less iv the melting pot at the present time, and in England the whole question was being revised, lie dealt with the necessity for the unification of the education system on the lines of bis re—nt address beforo the Teachers' Association, and stated that only education could supply the needs of the masses. While education remained in the hands of tbe few the education was confined to a few select classes. This was not sufficient for democracy. Our system, he said, was not national, and was not a system. We should aim at making onr system so complete that no other system could compete with it. Dr - Rf"** 0 said he represented the parents. He moved that this meeting urges most emphatically the immediate educational reform is a necessary and imperative war measure. Ho said one outstanding lesson of the war was the need of preparation to prevent war. The first step in meeting the conditions that would arise after the war was to pat in order the machinery of education. Our present duty was to overbad this machinery, and even, if necessary, to reconstruct it and gear it up to a high speed of efficiency. Failure would result in self-sufficiency and incapacity. Education alone could supply the economic needs of the world, and the sYstem must be complete and all-embracing. ANOTHER GREAT WORK. Miss Butler seconded the motion. She alluded to the effect of misapplied vocational training in Germany. At present, she said, we were paying a frightfully heavy price for lack of attention to proper education In the past, and the people of this generation should do everything in their power to prevent the children of the future from paying the same price. It caused her a feeling of intense indignation when she looked at the beautiful children in this Dominion and knew that their minds were not? developed as they should be. The poor unfortunate teacher was blamed, but did tho public as a while know what tbey wanted when tbey talked of education ? What was wanted was a mmd that could cope with tho difilculties of life, and the child's life from the beginning must be carefully atto. We were doing a great war work, but there was another great work to he done. There was nothing the world wanted so badly as the preparation of the next generation. To do this they had to give their best; tbey must insist that their country provided a proper educational system, proper educational teachers, and proper i—pectors.

Mr T. Bloodworth also spoke, in support of the motion, and said that trade unions gen—ally were in favour of the work of the Institute. There'wcrc in progress two wars—tbat in Europe, which happily appeared to be drawing to a close, and the war against ignorance, which had been waged since the beginning of things. He ouoted the system of Germany as showing how the psychology of a nation could be changed in one generation by educating the children. In Germany the ideals of the nation bad been perverted, hut we could efTcct a change in the right direction, and to that end all energies should he devoted Mr L. Joll and Mr T. TJ, Wells also supported the resolution.