“NEW EDUCATION”

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 70, 16 December 1937, Page 18

“NEW EDUCATION”

Principles Borrowed From Plato MR. W. H. STEVENS’S VIEWS “Since the New Education Fellowship held its meeting here last July, 1 have been endeavouring to find out all I could about ‘The New Education,’ and more particularly of the practical application of the new ideals, because I feel that parents who pay twice for the education of their children have a right to expect they will at least be taught by the most up-to-date methods,” stated Mr. W. H. Stevens, principal of Wejlesley College, speaking at the breaking-up ceremony last night. “I may say at once that the task of finding out just what are the main ‘planks,’ as it were, of the New Education has not been easy, because the New Educationists—-like the new politicians —are not so much concerned about giving a clear account of their proposals as in wholesale condemnation of the methods that they oppose. “Shorn of its verbiage, the New Education declares that education should be for citizenship, and specially for the right use of leisure; that bodily health is a primary necessity for the proper development of character and performance of the duties of a citizen; that the teaching of art should aim primarily at appreciation. The total effect of all this to be ‘a balanced personality with a right disposition of soul.’ “This is the New Education, and it seems fair enough to me. Though why these ideas should be termed ‘New’ is far from .clear, since these principles were laid down by Aristotle 350 years before the time of Christ, and they were not new even then, for Aristotle borrowed them from Plato, who doubtless acquired many of them from Socrates. But if the ideas themselves are not new, perhaps the methods for ‘fully and harmoniously’' developing the personality will prove to be new. Here again, I have had some considerable difficulty in discovering what practical methods the New Educationists propose to introduce. 1 know that there are such schools as Summerhill where the children do just as they like, and where, to quote the headmaster: 'We have a school where the child can follow his inner nature. If he wants to. learn we have teachers to assist him. If he wants to play all day, he must be allowed to do so. If he wants to swear—that is his own business.’ “I recently read an article by Mr. Guy Kendall in which he declares: ‘We can make school work like a holiday,’ an'd he proposes to do it by going into camp for the whole of the summer term. What I should like to know is what Mr. Kendall proposes to do in the holidays—go to school, possibly. Unpractical Attitude. “The same unpractical attitude is adopted by many of the New Educationists toward the curriculum. They insist that most of the subjects we teach are not only useless but harmful, and I know one enthusiast who declares that physiology and psychology are the only subjects worth teaching. I don’t doubt that some change is necessary, both in methods an'd curricula; and I am sure that to change all the tedium of learning into the joy of selfexpression is a wonderful idea; but I think that there is just a bit too much of this free-and-easy business, the natural reaction to which is the iron discipline of the dictator.

“The assumption that children are generally unhappy at school ail'd go about in continual fear of punishment is quite wrong; but, Life and Nature being such that punishment follows transgression of its laws, any system that does not enforce discipline is fundamentally unsound.”