EDUCATION AND LANGUAGE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 294, 11 December 1943, Page 4

EDUCATION AND LANGUAGE

(To the Editor)

If "Twice Capped" can find in my article any suggestion that a modern foreign language be made compulsory for a B.A. degree to the exclusion of the "dead" languages, he will have found something I was most careful not to put into it. I owe too much to the classics and am too firm a believer in the discipline and outlook to be derived from them to be so exclusive a partisan of the moderns. I also believe that any small addition to our mental and spiritual experiences—on what your correspondent calls "a microscopical accretion of culture" — will ultimately contribute to the happiness of the people-of New Zealand. But, having no immediate economic or material aim this may not appeal to those who seek "happiness" in bottle parties an undiscriminating cinema or the unremitting clap-trap of commercial broadcasting. One needs no elements of educational psychology, but only a little common sense to realise the importance of interest. While it is true that you cannot get blood out of a stone, or satisfactory arts graduates from students who are not prepared to make the efforts demanded of them, it is equally true that latent interests in language, literature or anything else cannot be aroused unless an opportunity is provided. Finally, may I correct an error of which 1 was guilty? The Director of Education is a member not of the Academic Board, but of the Senate of the University of New Zealand. A. C. KEYS. Auckland University College.