TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16314, 11 September 1918, Page 5

TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PRESS." Sir, —With reference to the letter of Mr Keir in your issue of the 10th inst., I wish to say that his impressions of his visit to the Technical College in l 1915 are very different from mine. My I invitation to Mr Keir was not made j ifcany way for the purpose of "carpet- . ing" him for opinions ho had expressed j in evidence before the Arbitration ; Court, but for the purpose of giving i him an opportunity of making himself I acquainted with the character of the i work we are doing, as by his remarks he had shown himself to be quite in , | the dark. The visit seemed to produce the effect I expected, for Mr Keir left every one of us under the impression 1 ! that he was favourably, disposed to the | work and would give it his enrourage- ' | ment. At that time there was no ques- ;' tion beforo the Board of withdrawing boys from the shop during the daytime, and . I do not believe that the matter was even mentioned, much less , discussed, during his visit. ■ I With regard to the squares, callipers, |ctc., which form exercises for. tho students, I may point out that it is the 1 practice of each student to make a set of these, and in doing so we are only following out the method adopted in I tho training of apprentices in the best ! shops at Home. If Mr Keir knew anything about the practice in the Old j Country he would know that it was 'among the privileges of apprentices to make these tools for themselves, though as an employer I have no doubt, since j he calls it wasting time, he would be one of the first to stop a boy from making them. It is not a question, of cheapness at all; it is a question of ; training the boy to do exact work. Mr Keir knows as well as I do that the , College is filling in a gap made in the , workshop training through the attitude ' of some employers, who will not give nor allow their foremen time to give instruction to their apprentices. Mr ' Keir forgets that it is not only trade 1 instruction that the apprentice is requiring. The war has revealed tho need for greater attention to all-round development The debates in the English Parliament have shown that pnbhc ■ men are alive to the fact that nnless

we pay attention to the all-round development of the young wo_ cannot hope to hold our own in competing with our rivals who are doing so. I have turned out of my own shop some of tho best tradesmen to be found in New Zealand, who are holding high positions here, and when in England a few years ago I was complimented by the Superintending Engineer of a largo steamship company on tho ability of some of our apprenticfes who were then in England. But notwithstanding all this, with the extra training they are receiving at the Technical College and at Canterbury College I hope we shall turn out still better men. I look upon an educated man as of more value to the country-than an uneducated one, and do not agree with Mr Keir when he tells us that we shall have to import Chinese to dig our drains. I think an educated man quite aB capable of digging a drain as an uneducated' one. and that is the point where, we diner.— Yours, etc., qeO. SCOTT. Christchurch, September 10th.