THE PROBLEM OF LEISURE

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21024, 28 November 1933, Page 9

THE PROBLEM OF LEISURE

AUSTRALIAN INVESTIGATION NEW INTERESTS FOR THE UNEMPLOYED (TROM OUR OWV CORBESPONDEHT.) SYDNEY, November 16. A hint was given by the New South Wales Minister for Education to the newly-appointed Commission on Technical Education to extend the scope of its enquiry into a new social realm. It is an inescapable fact that the increase in unemployment due to the depression has forced upon many people more leisure than they know what to do with. Sonic have drifted into crime, or at least into bad company, and have kept the police busy. Again, scores of others have been forced to take up work that is not congenial. They have become discontented, and a discontented citizen is usually a bad citizen. All the Minister said, when he addressed the members of the commission, was: "It may be found on enquiry that there is a greater need to train the community for leisure than was the case before the mechanical age was upon us." How much or how little of the depression has been the result of "the machine age" lias not yet been settled, and may never be settled, although it wiil always be a popular topic with politicians and economists. The commission has not been asked to solve the question of unemployment, but it has been asked to suggest a remedy for some of the effects of unemployment on the social morality of.the people. At present many young people are being trained in the technical schools for positions that do not exist. Such a policy cannot be regarded as a sound one, and it seems that the commission will have to evolve a scheme which would put them to better use. Educationists have long realised the social problem occasioned by increased leisure, and the commission represents the first serious attempt in Australia to deal with it.

Teaching Hobbies.

The commission will consider the wisdom of placing technical education in various hobbies at the disposal of the new "leisured" class. It is confidently felt that if the men who have no jobs, or jobs that are uncongenial, can be soundly instructed in such hobbies as wireless, metal work, and cabinet work, the new interest in their lives will convert them into useful citizens, and social assets. Thirty years ago the technical schools in New South Wales were overrun with hobbyists. Since the training for a hobby .is incompatible with the training required by a skilled tradesman, it followed that the tradesmen were being excluded from the schools that were originally intended for them. There was no unemployment problem then, and in an attempt to reform the technical schools the hobbyists were driven out, except for a few branches.

It is obvious that any attempt to eater for the amateur must entail

additional expense, and it will be for the Government to say how far it will go—and the Government is already embarrassed by the cost of education. However, many educational authorities in Sydney are satisfied that a large proportion of the huge sum spent on juvenile education is wasted. Excellent as the system is, It assumes that every boy and girl is capable of being educated up to a given standard. Actual teaching experience has shown that tens of thousands of boys and girls who have expensive technical and general education Aug at them, as it were, have been incapable of getting any practical or cultural benefits from that education. The commission may suggest some drastic alterations, and may suggest that some of the money spent on children who attend technical schools could be applied to giving adults knowedge they would appreciate. Certaintly the commission's duty will be to evolve some scheme throwing open to men and women every facility for their own cultural development. It does not mean that they will be offered free technical education. They are bound to appreciate more that which they pay for, and some ideas along those lines ! might be the outcome of the very thorough enquiry that has just been commenced. |