LIBERALISING OF EDUCATION

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27047, 23 May 1953, Page 5

LIBERALISING OF EDUCATION

“GENERAL LECTURES” AT UNIVERSITY

SCHEME TO BROADEN PERSPECTIVES

General education —the broadening of perspectives in all university faculties—has attracted wide interest among staff and students at Canterbury University College since, in recent years, it has become a topic of casual and official discussion in New Zealand. A discussion group formed two years ago by Dr. H. D. Broadhead, associate professor, of classics, originated some exchange lectures between faculties. During 1952, a course of lectures for all students was given by the staff of the economics department. Now in its second year is another programme by which staff, mainly from the faculty of arts, give weekly lectures to staff and research students of the chemistry department. This term, the scheme will be extended by the inauguration of a series of voluntary lectures by 11 members of the college staff on the development of ideas in the period from 1760 to 1830 —the period of revolution and romantic reaction. In the geography lecture room at 1.10 p.m. each Friday, students in all subjects will be invited to hear a lecturer speak .on some figure of significance in his particular field of activity.

The programme is as follows:—(1) The background to the lectures, by Mr J. B. Owen, lecturer in history and political science; (2) Rousseau, by Mr P. J. Lawrence, lecturer in education; (3) Goethe, by Mr T. E. Carter, lecturer in modern languages; (4) Adam Smith, by Mr A. J. Danks, senior lecturer in economics; (5) Lavoisier and Priestley, by Dr. H. N. Parton, associate professor of chemistry; (6) Burke and Paine, by Professor N. C. Phillips, head of the history department; (7) Wordsworth, by A. W. Stockwell, senior lecturer in English language and literature; (8) Wesley, by Mr G. M. Miller, senior lecturer in economics; (9) Richard Price, by Professor A. N, Prior, head of the philosophy department; (10) Byron, by Professor J. C. Garrett, head of the English department; “Old Q” and others, by Mrs D. M. Crowther, assistant lecturer in psychology.

In university circles, particularly in the British Commonwealth, the view is widely held that any subject, however technical, may be a vehicle for cultural education if treated appropriately. The interested lecturers at Canterbury College believe it is also desirable that specialists in one faculty should know something of the main ideas and developments in other faculties. The latest programme of general lectures is the outcome. Members of the panel of speakers believe that the scheme may be continued, as ideas of the revolutionary period lead inevitably to consideration of those of the nineteenth century, and then to the modern age. The suggestion has also been made that ideas for the twenty-first century might be tackled.

Before we join the ranks of the prophets, we will see the reaction of students to discussions on the immediate past, in which the seeds of the ideas of our own day were sown,” said the lecturer who explained the present proposals.