FORCE OF EDUCATION

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 30, 6 February 1933, Page 5

FORCE OF EDUCATION

OF TO-DAY SENSE OF PUBLIC DUTY. : •" 'Education is one of. the newest arts, and sciences,' 'Mr. .H. G. Wells la's told us^ and certainly this is true of the education of girls. * It was not long before the foundation of this school that the higher education 'of .girls-was seriously contemplated or undertaken, and even now the teaching of girls is m^he^lands^.of: pioneers feeling their*? way; C N o -educational problem is more perplexing than the question of the education of bojss and girls; of -the secondary school age, tfor there the school problem is complicated by the industrial problem." ■ !" The above lemarks were made by Canon Perciyal"James in the course of his address at the special service at St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral yesterday in connection with the jubilee celebrations of the Wellington Girls' College. '.'No -wise man will doubt the beneficent power of- education, but education whichis not rooted in sound principles and directed to a worthy end and purpose, is likely to produce a generation which will- aggravate rather ; than remedy our present social and economic maladies. One of the outstanding social experiments of this century has been xhe extension of higher education in the secondary school and university— an education which is nowhere more widely^ distributed than in this Dominion. Educational experiment must be judged by its results. "It is inevitable that in these years of 'heart-searching criticism, systems of public education everywhere should be subjected to severe scrutiny. There are those who ; confess themselves dis- ' appointed and disillusioned. An English critic has said ' that popular education has proved less an instrument of moral discipline, than a factor of moral indiscipline. It has stimulated the self-importance of a large class of those to whom it vhas been given, and exalted, their self-estimate, Tendered them impatient of subordination and restive under hardship, inspired them with immense expectations, but .fitted them for little endurance.' If that be the truth, then the people of tomorrow, may decide that education, as it/has been given and received, is rather a peril than a strength to the community. '_" 'Freely !ye have received, freely give' should be the . message of the school to her children. Here, surely, is one test of the value of education go freely bestowed. The generation which has enjoyed greater educational opportunities than thdse afforded to any previous generation may rightly be expected, to have a greater sense' of public duty and of civic obligation, and a keener desire 'to put into the common Stock more than ±hey take out of it* -