REAL EDUCATION

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 20, 18 October 1933, Page 8

REAL EDUCATION

Development Rather Than Book. Learning YOUTH AND ITS IDEALS Professor W. Gould, of Victoria College, spoke on “The Ways of Youth” before the Rotary Club yesterday. The rearing of youngsters, he said, was the most difficult and important Industry in this country, for on the manner in which they were reared depended the future of the country, and in saying so he made no apology to anyone. In his point of view education was nothing more nor less than rearing the child. His idea of education, as opposed to book learning, was that it meant the process of development and all the activities of teachers and parents were as nought if they did not result in the development of the child. ' Learning, unless it was accompanied by the de’velopment of the individual, meant little or nothing. “Some have said that education creates character. Well, I have no particular fault to find with that. I am, however, inclined to agree with Emerson that every good citizen in the making must be a non-conformist; that is to say he must not be a negative, docile, follow-the-leader type. There is something in personality and independence of character —it is the mark of the fully developed Individual.” School Success Unessential. As a matter of fact, there was very little co-relation between school success and life success, for as often as not the school failure turned out to be the life success. “It seems to me,” he said, “that school success may be purchased at the expense of the development of the youngster by robbing him of the things necessary to his develop ment in a natural w_ay. There have been many cases where youngsters have refused to be bound to the wheel of learning, yet have achieved success in life.” The speaker put forth his belief that there was a law governing the whole process of human development, as nothing in Nature was haphazard. As man was the highest organism, so he must be the most complex, which made it all the more difficult to understand the development of the youngster. The changes made by Nature were swift, and "he did not propose to follow them, but be did propose to refer to the period of adolescence, the change which came with dramatic suddenness, and the time that was so, often one of storm and stress. That period of youth was not a bed of roses. It was the period of new physical, mental, and emotional experiences. The tendency in the healthy was toward the highly idealistic in life, a striving toward a condition of perfect adjustment. They envisaged a new form of society, a new outlook, a state in which discreditable people should be discredited. This was the age more than any other when religion made its greatest appeal, when fifty per cent, of the conversions took place, all because of that urge toward more perfect conditions which would permit of them being attuned to humanity at large and infinity. Desire for Independence. In the healthy youth there was always the desire for physical and economic independence, a fine spirit if developed rightly. The saddest of all experiences was to see the healthy ambitions of youth face to face with opportunities so shrunken that the outlook was blank and full of despair with so many young people. The result of this thwarting of the urge of youth was instability. “I do not say that youth should be given its own way,” said the professor, “but all connected with them should seek to understand the ways of youth and their significance, and not exaggerate the importance ?of youth’s actions. What they need is guidance and direction, not compulsion. I ask you tp judge them,” he said, “not by your own standards, but in accordance with the standards of youth.” The speaker was accorded an appreciative round of applause for his address. Illllllillllllllllllllllllliilllllllllllllllllllllll