THE WORLD WAR, AND AFTER

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2527, 30 July 1915, Page 6

THE WORLD WAR, AND AFTER

FROM AN EDUCATIONIST'S POINT OF VIEW. Speaking at the opening of the new Training College for leachers at Kelburn on Wednesday, Mr. Geo. Hogben, lately Inspector-General of Schools, referred to tho great war and its influence on the ideals in education. "Most people," ho said, "are beginning to see that this world-war, ,in which we aro engaged, and which occupies our minds now, almost shutting out every other topic, is going to change greatly, if not altogether, many of our ideas about human life, especially in regard to tho relations of the. various nations'of the world to 0110 another, and in regard to the social structure which constitutes tho frame-work of whit wo call, with, deep unconscious satire, our modern" civilisation. Now, if one of the results of the war is to cause us to recast our ideas of human life, makiiig us set small value upon things that wo counted of great importanco before, and Riving new ideals of the duty of the nation and the individual citizen, it must also involve in as great a degree a recasting of our ideas of education.

"Efficiency is good—we can. learn much even from our foes in this matter. But it may be used, as wo see to-day, as the -instrument of the most organised barbarism, nay, ruffianism, this poor old world of ours has ever seen. We have taken up this war—it has. been -forced upon the British Empire—in defence of tho smaller nations, in loyalty to tho sacredness of our word pledged by solemn treaties ('scraps of paper,' as tho German Chancellor calls them), and in tho cause of freedom and justico everywhere) • We cannot say that, I fear, of all our wars in tho past; but undoubtedly it is truo of this war. Wo entered into tho war with a noble ideal. I hope wo. shall keep that ideal to the olid, aud in the fine -words of Lord Roberts, 'Whatever 'the enemy may do, keep our hands clean.' But Wo shall pro'vo that virtue is 110 soft, weak thing (as Nietzsche and Treitschke would havo us believe), but that .it is really truo manliness —that it can strike hard and endure hardness—not merely for its own advantage or even, for/its own existence—not to extend its own dominions, not to take a' blind: revenge upon every individual German, but in the cause of goodness, liberty, unselfish,' ness, and that justice which is eternal.

"If. whatever be the cost or sacrifice involved, wo endure'to the' end loyal to those principles, then I am convinced that in spite of all-its -awful suffering aaid evil, the war will have brought this boon —a clear and bright ideal of'life, which will radically change, but at the same time simplify our ideals, our aims and our methods in education, and' in all our other social and national activities."