The Dominion. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1938. THIS “ NEW FREEDOM ”

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 71, 16 December 1938, Page 10

The Dominion. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1938. THIS “ NEW FREEDOM ”

Among the school prize-giving speeches reported yesterday attention is particularly drawn to the plea put forward by the Pt in cipal of Wellesley College, Mr. Stevens, for “intelligent discipline that depends upon understanding.” Because there is not enotig o this requirement for responsible citizenship in evidence, Mr. Stevens feels somewhat apprehensive about the “new freedom” the present generation of young New Zealanders are enjoying in the schools, the university colleges, and in their social life. It is one regrettable result of this, he declares, that so many of our young school teachers leave the training colleges and the university with Communistic views, which, unfortunately, they do not always keep to themselves _in the classroom. The speaker here was voicing a fairly general impression. Whether it is that there is a persuasive quality about Communist writers that inveigles the interest of unthinking young people, or that this, particular school is given undue prominence, there remains the fact that the prevalence of Communistic ideas among these young students has been the subject of frequent public comment. The charge, if true, indicates an undeveloped sense of responsibility. A good deal of nonsense was talked after the Great War about the challenge of youth to the conservatism and irksome restraints of their elders, and the “brave new world” which they claimed as theirs to enjoy and experiment with. The reins of discipline, both in the home and the school, were relaxed to encourage so-called “self-expression” among young people. But idealism overran discretion, and as a result we have had this much-vaunted new freedom” without the compensating balance of self-discipline, and selfexpression without adequately developed powers of thinking. Mr. Stevens remarks that the trouble with many young people, today 'is that they think too little and-talk too much. Many will agree with him there.

The hallmarks of a sound education should be an educated capacity in original thinking, and a trained sense of discrimination, enabling the possessor to distinguish between reasoned utterance and what is colloquially stigmatized as “boloney.” In another place, the principal of Rongotai College, Mr. F. Martyn Renner, lays it down that the purpose of education is to enable the young citizen to play his part in life.” It will certainly avail him little for playing that part efficiently and effectively if with all the knowledge he may have been able to acquire he has not been properly taught to think, to discriminate, and to discipline himself. Neglect of these essential qualifications for good citizenship may spell eventually the loss of the freedom we have so long enjoyed, and the destruction of our democratic life. z ' v