HARMONY AMONG NATIONS

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26633, 19 January 1952, Page 2

HARMONY AMONG NATIONS

VALUE OF EDUCATION REMOVING IGNORANCE AND INERTIA “Two of the great obstacles to international understanding are ignorance and inertia, for we do not know nearly enough about each other to inculcate better relationships." said Miss N. Moncrieff, who was for 15 years World Fellowship secretary of the Y.W.C.A. in China, when speaking at the conference of the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association last evening. Miss Moncrieff is now on the staff of the Correspondence School in Wellington, and the subject she discussed was education for international understanding. The most strategic age for education for international understanding was youth, because that was the most impressionable age, said Miss Moncreiff. The problem was to find that kind of education which would give the desire and skill for developing harmonious and creative relationships in all dealings with our fellow men, whether within our own immediate society or in the wider international group. In the modern trend for teaching geography, as laid down by UNESCO seminars, there was a definite concept of world unity. This was seen in a definite concept of the world as a unity. It was seen in the physical features of

the world’s surface and in the interdependence of peoples and countries. Physical geography described and explained the setting in which mankind lived, and the common need for food, clothing, shelter, and an ordered social life, with man’s efforts to secure them under conditions that varied under material resources, climate and relief. Human geography gave an idea of the common needs of man and how he must meet them, and this promoted international understanding. “We must understand the problem of national sovereignty and why we cling to our national rights, which block the way to peace, and we must try to develop a public opinion which will lead to greater co-operation, even if it demands sacrifices of us all,” said Miss Moncrieff. “Is human nature capable of meeting the demands that the maintaining of peace will put upon it?” she asked. Miss Moncrieff said she believed that if the world was to survive the interests of people must be put ahead of the pursuit of power.