POWER OF EDUCATION

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 239, 4 July 1940, Page 11

POWER OF EDUCATION

Reconstruction When War Is Ended

PREPARING FOR FUTURE

Education in time of war was the •theme of an address by Mr. E. Martyn Renner, principal of Rongotai College, in an address lust night to parents on the school curriculum. “Not many of us realize,” said Mr. Renner, "the part education 'plays both in making war and in reconstruction after war. Education is a powerful factor in hot it departments. As to the effectiveness ami potency of education in preparing a nation’s vision and its manhood for war, reflect for a moment on rite three separate phases of German history over the past 100 years Here tliey are: The Bismarck policy from 1 stilt to 1871, the Prussian Junker ambitions toward PanGermanism from 1.890 to 1918, and now tlie Hitler dream of. world domination from 1932-1940. Each one of the sinister movements achieved its initial momentum and driving power in the schools, colleges and universities in Germany, “Whenever you hear of PanGermanism. Lebensrauin, Drang Nach Osten and the other so-called ideals of Germany, you may be certain that all these doctrines were deliberately planted and fostered in the Reich’s educational system. So, too, was the hatred of England—a hatred intensified by a propaganda system of the vilest and most ruthless kind. It was left to Hitler to forge with unscrupulous hand the youth of Germany into a weapon for total warfare. He himself -has said, ‘I can afford to ignore those of mature age who do not agree with my policy—but give me the young people to my will ami in a decade they will follow me without question and in ready obedience.’ Idealism Crushed. “This he has succeeded in doing. He has within eight years crushed the idealism out of the youth of Germany, blunted their liner feelings, yet sharpened their lust for cruelty and domination; in short, made of them mere mechanized tools for him to use. AU this he has achieved through the medium of the new type of education which ho introduced when he came into power. I have talked to people who have visited Germany during the last few years; and all of them say the same thing—the terrible picture of a nation oil children prepared carefully and thoroughly for immolation on the altar of world domination. Education plus mechanization has developed a technique in warfare without parallel in the history of the world. The significant- figures are that the bulk of Germany’s manpower on land, sea and in the air, ranges from the youth of 16 years to the young man of 25 years. Rebuilding the World.

“Let us leave this lamentable picture of the prostitution of education to serve the ends of destruction and ambition and turn to the other picture of education as the great healer and the great reconstructor when the drums of war are silent and the battle flags are furled. It is this other picture that concerns you and your children, but mostly your children. It is your children that we look to to rebuild and to repair a devastated world —as much in the literal sense as in the figurative. For, after the war, great economic, social and financial problems will arise and these children must be better prepared to solve them than we were after the last war.

“It may well be that our own failure, our sins of omission have been visited on our children. But when this war is over, here, as elsewhere there must be no confession of failure on the part of our present day children, to help in the work of rebuilding. So today, I say to you, as I say to the boys—to yon, ‘See that your children get the fullest and broadest type of education; at no matter what sacrifice.’ —to them, ‘lt is your bounden duty to prepare yourselves for the years to come. You are, thank God, yet too young to fight; but yon are not too young to be trained for the great work that will be yours and yours alone.’ “I do hope you -will realize how important, how terribly important, it is, that we, you and I, shall not fail in giving them the best we can give—an education that signifies the highest development of the physical, mental, moral and spiritual. No other type of education will moot the needs of the hours and days to come. We are doing our best to provide that type of education. On parent's devolves the duty of doing all they can to help the school and schools in that aim. In particular, I would ask that the spirit of defeatism be kept out of the home. Don’t let the children share your feelings of gloom and despondency whenever these threaten to overcome you. No Need For Gloom.

“It is unwise and wrong for the parent to give Ills family the idea that everything is wrong with the world —the wha t-is-the-use-of-taking-any-trouble-about-the-future attitude. It is not so much the future of the parents that matters, but that of the child. Moreover, there is no need for gloom and despondency. Whenever there is a conflict between good and evil, good must ultimately triumph. To deny the truth of that is' to deny the all-appar-ent evolution of man from the lowest form of existence to the highest form of life in body, mind and spirit. Evil cannot triumph; good must win. “And finally, may I sound one other note of warning? Keep out of your children’s he'aring all criticism and recriminations. national or political. As members of a democracy, you have freedom of thought; but as members of a nation at war, you must put a bridle on your tongue, particularly iu what you say inside your own family circle and in the hearing of your children.

“Remember that little pitchers have long ears. It is better for the pitcher to be filled with clear wholesome water, than with water not as pure as it should be. If it is right that subversive propaganda should be killed at large—then equally the least trace of it in the home should be avoided. It is wrong for any family to be the nucleus of defeatism or of discontent, criticism and recrimination.”