The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, MARCH, 4, 1922. "SLAVE" VIRTUES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 53, 4 March 1922, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

SATURDAY, MARCH, 4, 1922. "SLAVE" VIRTUES.

■ ■ ■ For the came that lacks at.inta.nee, For the tcrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that wo can da. g_*s_"____________*_"__"^§

I When the poet Cowper described j schoolmasters as "machines themselves and governed by a clock," and T. E.I I Brown deplored in his poem on "Clifton" the deadly routine of school life, they certainly hit upon the danger that exists in many schools of making education too mechanical and leaving too little play, for the free development of child life.' But we may admit this danger without! going so far as Mr. G. H. D. Cole, thei well-knowp writer on Labour problems, who recently declared at a London conference on education that punctuality, regularity, discipline, industry, and thoroughness were a set of "slave" virtues, and he wanted to see developed the virtues of the rebel. He wanted to see the teachers rebels first tJhemselves, and then inculcating the rebel spirit in their pupils. Punctuality may be a slave virtue, but it is a very useful virtue, and the world would be a very difficult place io live in if unpunctuality became the rule of life for the majority of mankind. There was a time when the views of Mr. Cole were put in operation by a certain tramway in a marinv suburb. The tramway naving imbibed the spirit of Britannia from the waves ohat washed its route resolved that it never, never would be a slave to mere clocks and time tables. It added to both the interest and variety of existence, it discouraged haste—that bane of modem life—and it gave plenty of 6cope for the grace of meditation. From an educational point of view it did much to correct what another speaker at the conference described as the poverty of language possessed by g0 many people. But all these rebel graces failed to convince the masses of their superiority over the slave virtues of punctuality and regularity, and so this fine experiment in Mr. Cole's method of education had toj 6e reluctantly abandoned by its originators. Unpunctuality in the running of suburban trains has been tried by more than one company without meeting with any whole-hearted approbation from the majority of travellers, though it has sometimes been found a convenience by those desiring to explain a late appearance. Probably Mr. Cole himself likes si, ne measure of punctuality in such mundane matters as meals and railways,

and consults time-tables with a lingering I hope that they may prove to be fairly 1 correct. | Of course this denunciation of virtues that commended themselves so dearly to "self-helpful" Samuel Smiles applies to life as well as to school. Mr. Cole is profoundly dissatisfied with everything, j All capitalism, in his opinion, is sheer i robbery. He would shatter the world to j bite and remould it nearer to his heart's desire. Disorder, he said in this same address, was what was wanted in society to-day. Such rejection of virtues which society has been brought up to regard as a second Decalogue is a reaction from the ideal of a conventional individualism, which, if pushed too far, not only j checks originality, but promotes selfish- j ness. It is, up to a point, a healthy ! protest against the glorification of the j idea of getting on in the world. A man j may be punctual, regular, obedient, industrious and thorough, and yet be unpleasantly and even disastrously antisocial. This is only another way of saying that every virtue can become a vice, but because it has this tendency : is that any reason why it should be • denounced? For the common man the virtues of punctuality, regularity, industry and thoroughness are not only valuable, but they are possible of attain-1 ment. Education does not deal with the ' exceptional, it deals with ordinary minds and seeks to make them useful and serviceable in their day and genera- | tion, and for this purpose the "slave" j virtues are essential. The humour of such denunciations by j Socialists and revolutionaries is that j these virtues obtain in their world and would be insisted on under any! form of Socialism or 'proletariat autocracy. That trade union discipline is severe is well known. We never heard that less was expected of a clerk ; in the way of punctuality or accuracy because he happened to be employed by a Labour organisation. In Russia if men will not practise "industry" they are deprived of food. If the Guild Socialism which Mr. Cole and his friends favour arrives, it will be interesting to how far these standards will be relaxed. Will the worker be allowed to come and go as be likes, and to emulate the girl bank clerk in "Punch" who when her manager rebuked her for a mistake in a balance said he was "so fussy"? Mr. Cole, we imagine, would be the first to insist on the old habits. Just at present, however, he is in a delightful position of irresponsibility. 'He can privately insist on having his breakfast punctually, and on having his boots repaired with "thoroughness," but when it comes to talking publicly he can pour contempt and ridicule on these virtues. It may Beem rather wonderful that a clever man can talk such nonsense, but there are so many of them doing it these days that it should cease to cause surprise.