LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2669, 14 January 1916, Page 7

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

SCIENCE AND EDUCATION. i Sir, —Your correspondent "Bis Dat Qui C'ito Dat" has read my communications on the Germanising of our educational system either very carelessly or very uuintolligently. I heartily believe in science, and more especially m scientific methods in the teaching of all subjects. My chief contention is that iii our undue and inconsiderate haste to follow the examplo of Germany in specialising, we are directing our higher education generally, and more especially in pure science, into channels for which there is no educational or economic warrant. Our first consideration, as educationists, should bo to see that our educational system is broad-based on tho people's needs. If we provide costly facilities for training specialists of any kind, wo should surely consider tho question of "demand." . Our Now Zealand University Colleges have under the iniiueiico of a pseudo-reform movement been indulging freely and wastefully in tho luxury of providing "supply" where there is, and can be, for a long time to come no real economic demand! There aro more students of medicine (in New Zealand to-day) than of pure science, yet wo have one School of Medicine and four Schools for pure Science in the Dominion. Surely there is something here that demands earnest l and .serious consideration on tho part of our educationists, and with all the more reason, inasmuch as the largo faculties at our Jniversity Colleges aro shamefully (there is no other word for it) under-staffed, while the facilities and equipment for carrying on their work effectively are hopslessly inadequate/ It'will be quite tin>e enough for this Dominion to establinh specialising Schools in Science when there is some prospect of a local "demand" for such specialists as we can equip. Has not almost every specialist in scienco trained in New Zealand had to go abroad to secure an appointment worth applying, for? Are we going to provide special schools here for the equipment of experts in science, and then havo to export them in order to provide them with a modicum of victuals? I understand that there is a movement afoot (locally) to establish a "School of Economics" at Victoria College. Such a. .school must inevitably be a white elephant, like so many of our schools of pure science. We have already a nucleus of such a school at each of our four University Colleges. There aro only three or four universities in the British Empire where a School df Economics is to be found.-Such a school can bo justified only whero tho demand for specialists in economics is very considerable. How many specialists in economics can New Zealand absorb per annum? All that our Dominion can justifiably require in this connection at present can be amply and adequately provided for by' a joint Chair of History and Economios (and an as-, sistant lectureship) at each of the four colleges. Yet we are, probably destined to witness in tho near future, the establishment at one or more of our university colleges, of a "School of Economics"—an economic luxury for which thore can be no possible justification for many years to come.

It would handsomely pay this Dominion to have every student of pure science and of advanced economics sent to one i.f our university centres, and to provide them there with free board, residence, and tuition provided we could dispense with the luxuries in science provided at the other centres. Lectureships in these latter centres would amply provide for the present needs and demand in almost all science subjects. I am well aware that in Germany and in England Latin receives far more serious attention than' in New Zealand. This has no relevant bearing whatever on the issue raised- in my letters. The English schoolboy begins Latin at 9or 10: the New Zealand schoolboy at 14. The average New Zealand B.A. in Latin knows a good deal less Latin than many a boy leaving one of our English public schools. There can be no doubt whatever that the literary equipment guaranteed by the New' Zealand matriculation is totally inadequate to justify using it as a base for specialising in science. The literary and cultural equipment provided students of science in Germany and England is far higher and more thorough than that provided in New Zealand. There is_, therefore, all the greater danger in encouraging early specialisation in this So my ;motto must still bo "eile mifc weile." — I am, etc., FESTINA LENTE.