"LIFE MORE NATURAL"

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 307, 28 December 1929, Page 11

"LIFE MORE NATURAL"

NEW ZEALAND CONDITIONS. A SCOT'S OBSERVATIONS. EDUCATION AND RELIGION. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) DUNEDIN, this day. The Rev. James Burns, of Scotland, ■ who has spent nine months in New Zealand, and is leaving for home to-day, in the course of an interview, said: "I have been greatly struck with the spirit of good fellowship and friendship which is abroad. I have also been strongly impressed by the absence of snobbery and of those barbed-wire enclosures which separate the different classes in the older civilisation. People here can call their soul their own, and live under a sense oi personal freedom, which adds to the happiness of the individual. Life here appears to be simpler, more natural, and it is lived under healthier conditions. "Furthermore, I have been greatly impressed by the number of men and women advanced in years who retain their physical strength and mental alertness, and who are keenly alive to all the best interests of the community. Tlieso aro descendants mostly of that wonderful band of pioneers which must be regarded as the finest body of emigrants which ever left the shores of the Homeland, and which the people can never afford to forget." Tribute to Otago Pioneers. Replying to a question regarding New Zealand's educational progress, the departing minister said that in its intellectual and educational interests he placed Dunedin very high—higher than any place at Home of equal size. It appeared to him to possess the characteristics more of a university town than of a commercial centre, and this feature showed the rare foresight of the early city fathers in- establishing Otago University at a time when other and more selfish interests might have absorbed their attention. Remarkable interest was taken in art subjects. He had assumed in the first place that since New Zealand was cut off from the great art centres, this would be a lightly esteemed subject; but the fact that such keen interest existed was proof of commendable anxiety for a wider culture. It was a credit to the people. "Two Things to Criticise." Referring again to education, Mr. Burns said the high standard of the uni-' versity education could be judged by the success of students who went Home and by the high places they took there. "But there are two things which prompt me to criticise," he added. "First, there is a tendency to encourage a specialised form of education, as against the more cultural form. The question has been asked, Why teach languages and literature to pupils entering commerce or going in for agriculture? Specialise in those things which will fit them for the work they are taking up.' This, I hold, is a mistake. It is carried too far. At Home, more and more men of business are going to the public schools and universities for leaders. The specialised mind works in grooves. It is the broadly educated mind that can best adapt itself to the ever-changing conditions of commerce and of life. * "It would be of value to both sides if professors here could exchange for a year with professors in Great Britain; or, failing that, if there could be a year given in every seven or more for study and travel it would be of the very greatest benefit to the Church here; also if by travelling scholarship capable students were enabled to spend a year at one of the theological colleges at Home; and so rub shoulders with their fellow gtndents there." Union of Churches. Referring to the union of churches, Mr. Burns remarked: "This movement is going to be the great movement of the future. Nationalism is giving way to internationalism, science and philosophy alike are moving towards unity of all thought, and in the Church there is a rising demand for union, which will annihilate the old sectarian bickerings. So far this movement seems to have touched the Church in New Zealand lightly, but with its homogeneous population New Zealand should find it simpler to reach a compromise than we at Home. She should be a leader, not a laggard, in the field. The desire for unity is really growing very rapidly, and the union of the Scottish Churches has given the movement an immense impetus." When asked whether he meant that without exception all Churches should unite, Mr. Burns answered in the affirmative. "At present- there seems little hope of getting in the Roman Catholic Church," he said, "but the future must have this goal in store, and all Churches will be as one."