Education To-day and To-morrow

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21961, 9 December 1936, Page 12

Education To-day and To-morrow

In his special message to the Education Supplement issued with “ The Press ” to-day the Minister for Education states in a short paragraph, but in wide terms, the aims of education and goes on, after pointing to the desirability and, indeed, inevitability of reforms encompassing these aims, to appeal for “the help .of all “earnestly interested in securing the best edu- “ cation for our children and young people.” There are two respects in which it is, perhaps, not superfluous to expand Mr Fraser’s words. The first is suggested by his reference to the need for a development culturally as well as technically complete; the second is suggested by the appeal just quoted. Nobody who has niven much observation and thought to the educational problems of New Zealand will have any doubt that they are deep and troublesome, and all the more so, perhaps, because the system has a sort of mechanical regularity and efficiency. Everything is provided for, by legislation, regulation, and syllabus; yet what results from this large and detailed provision is often and decidedly not education. But the desired reform will certainly not be achieved merely by spending more largely, in new directions or old, although better schools, better equipment, and more generous staffing would prow their value. The essential thing is a clear purpose—the danger being to mistake narrowness for clarity—pursued with a due sense of the truth that the means to a wise educational end not only may be but must be diverse. Somebody said once;

that nothing worth while could be done without organisation; and nothing worth while could be organised without killing it. The dilemma has its valuable warning, which in education signifies broadly that a system will be saved by honouring and serving a standard, a conception which keeps it organic, but ruined when it forgets the standard in zeal for standardising. The Minister has expressed clearly enough a purpose which is worth holding and forwarding with will, intellect, and imagination. It remains for him to see that it is not narrowed down, either in his 'own or in otters’ interpretation of it, to the prescription of a new drill for little goose-steppers. He will have to see that his even emphasis upon enjoyment and service, culture and technical ability, childhood and maturity, is not unbalanced by pressure towards the taking of short views and short cuts; and 1 ; will need, as he confesses, the help of an increasingly enlightened public opinion, if new ways are not to lead round again into, old tracks. The Minister wishes to encourage it, undoubtedly; and he will encourage it by giving it scope to exercise itself. This is not merely a matter of attracting helpers to serve on committees and boards, or to co-operate with those who do, though that is important. It is even more a matter of enabling .them to see, in the work of the schools, that needs are various and that provision for them is necessarily as various; and that no need is more generously viewed and provided for than another, but all as fully and justly as possible. A wise education system-and the wise use of it should begin and advance together.