IS IT OVERDONE?

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 6, 8 January 1930, Page 8

IS IT OVERDONE?

"EDUCATION MAD"

OUTSPOKEN COMMENT

lii the annual report of the Auckland Employers' Association, the president, Mr. A. Spencer, makes some forcible remarks about tho. trend of modern education, and suggests taht it is being overdone. "The- question of education is being seriously considered in New Zealand at present," he says,'"the general opinipn being that tho existing system is not only too costly, adding an excessivo burden in taxation, but has not proved suitable to the requirements of the country. Some radical changes are in contemplation with a view to placing it on a: more practical basis. Tho primary object* of education has been defined as "fitting the individual for effectual relationship with his (or hor( environments, and when it is found that hundreds of young people when leaving school cannot find suitablo employment, tho question naturally arises as to whether this object has been attained. "Those closely in touch-with industry maintain that a good primary education is all that is necessary for tho artisan and the manual labourer; these classes represent in industry some 90 per cent, or more of thoso employed. Tho contention that a higher standard of education will in itself tend to higher efficiency on the part of these workers is probably entirely erroneous. Tho skilled craftsman will if provided with the essential nucleus of a sound primary education very soon assimilate, with the facilities now provided, such further knowledge, even liighly advanced and technical, as ho may considor requisite. Many of our leading men to-day were working at an early ago, and practically all their education (and aonio' of them are very highly educated) was obtained in this manner. The man who deplores his want of success and attributes it to his lack of education in youth would probably have .been a failure any way. Tho ability, grit, energy, and determination which are the essential factors to success would have overcome tho disability of even a defective education; and without these requisites no amount of education could have raised him above the level of mediocrity. "The tendency of secondary, university, and evon technical training when applied generally and indiscriminately, is probably neither beneficial to tho individual or the community generally^ If artisans, settlers,, and manual workers are required; why waste the most important years of youth in cramming up to professional requirements? Probably moro harm than good is done by ignoring tho actual realities of lifo and limitations of environment, and educating to a standard which iii nine cases out' of ten the individual can never attain. , The higher education may or may not lead to success (in a necessarily small percentage of cases), but it will almost invariably lead to. discontent if that success—in which education is only one, and not the most important of factors—is not attained. "When education—after it \ has passed the admittedly essontial primary stages—is of a genoral character, it loaves the student at a fooso end. With a vaguo but general idea that he has been iitted for something better than an artisan's job, or a farm worker or a manual labourer, he hangs about until finally absorbed as a. clerk or offico boy, and eventually the groat army of mediocrities in the towns and cities whose means of subsistence are precarious, whose future is practically hopeless, and whose economic value to the community iB nogligible. In these cases education has not fitted them for effectual relationship with environments, and the responsibility for their failure must rest, in part at least, with the education system. "Tho various aspects of this important question are too varied to be dealt with briefly. It is, for instance, necessary that scholarships, bursaries, etc., shall still bo provided for the few of exceptional ability who may yet be dependont on public assistance for that higher education which tnpir demonstrated talont and fitness show they are capable of using to advantage, but I think it will have to bo admitted that there is much truth in Sir Thos. Mackenzie's assertion that we are educatioii mad in New Zealand to-day, and something of moro practical value, and at .less cost to tho country, will require to bo substituted for tho present system of education."