CONTROL OF EDUCATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 141, 17 June 1929, Page 17

CONTROL OF EDUCATION.

PROFESSOR ANDERSON'S

ATTITUDE

REPLY BY THE INSTITUTE

The secretary of the New Zealand Educational Institute writes from Wellington:—ln your issue of the Cth instant there is an article on '"Education Control/ , under the name of Professor Anderson, in which the writer makes reference to proposals of the Primary Teachers' Institute as expounded by its secretary, Mr. H. A. Parkinson. May I point "out that there is no such body as the Primary Teachers' Institute. The body of which I have the honour to be secretary lias for nearly fifty years borne the name of the Xew Zealand Educational Institute, and that throughout all that period it has borne that title worthily, and has lived up to and justified the" wider and higher title. It can confidently be asserted, and will be readily admitted by those competent to judge, that the institute has always been an educational institute, and never a mere teachers' institute. In the article very free and frequent use is made of my name. That does not matter in the least; what does matter is that an attempt should be made in this manner to distract attention from the real question of the hour by attempting to. make a kind of bogy of a mere name. The subject is too important to be dealt with in that way. In these two respects the professor's article shows a regrettable disregard for the ordinary courtesies of controversy; and he has only himself to blame if readers of his article are led to the conviction that for lack of matter for real argument he has been driven to avail himself of the demagogic trick of the argumentum ad hominem. So much for the manner of the article. Its matter has been adequately dealt with by Professor Fitt. I shall mention only two points. The article describes "The education process is continuous," as a particularly dangerous half-truth. Surely such a statement as that puts the writer completely out of court. Education, of a good kind or a bad kind, is as continuous as life itself, and the object of all educational reform is to make the continuity a3 good and fruitful as possible. The other point I shall mention is the alleged impossibility that members of a local body should be found who are able to take an intensive interest in each of the different types of education. The answer is twofold. First, there is nothing impossible about it, seeing that it is the general practice in the Old Country and can be readily adapted here. Secondly, there is no inherent difference, no natural dividing line, between primary and secondary education. Such divisions as we have and are accustomed to are purely artificial, and have their origin in the piecemeal growth of the different systems. In England, as here, one great object of educational reformers is to abolish the barriers between primary and secondary, and even to banish those names." Professor Fitt Replies. We have also received the following letter from Professor Fitt:—ln the friendly discussion between Professor Anderson and myself only one point remains uncertain. When I said, with reference to the continuity of development that "the child undergoes several changes in outlook and ability in the course of his growing up." and that "no one will deny for long that in a great ■ number of fundamental respects he is the same child." there was not the slightest intention of maintaining a materialistic position. My reference is to differences and samenesses of an _ intellectual, a social, and a moral kind. It is the old controversy of quantity versus quality. Is the child at the different stages" quite different or partly different, different rather in some aspects of his "social being" (which is very complex), rather than in others? Mere "animal continuity" will not satisfv here.