STUDY ABROAD

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 83, 5 October 1933, Page 13

STUDY ABROAD

INTERESTING DAYS

NEW ZEALANDER'S TOUR

EDUCATION RESEARCH

Days packed with life have been the lot of Mr. Norman R. Jaeobsen, M.Sc, siueo lie left Now Zealand two and a half years ago to travel abroad with the object of meeting leading educational authorities and discussing with them liis research work in education. He found that his work and the principles emerging from it were confirmed overseas, and.lie returned to the Dominion this week well satisfied with the results of the trip. Mr. Jacobsen was formerly a lecturer at the- Wellington Teachers' Training College, and apart from his scholastic attainments he has won distinction in. many branches of sport. Among the countries lie visited were the U.S.A., Canada, and. India. "Intense enthusiasm holds in. America on educational matters, which is most natural, as all problems in sociology, etc., resolve themselves ultimately, to the all-important national question of education," said Mr. Jacobsen in an.interview with a "Post" representative. '' The progressive schools are springing up.everywhere, owing to growing dissatisfaction with the national form of education." Mr. Jacobsen attended, at Columbia University, tho course required for the dootorato of philosophy. There he met representatives of seventy nationalities, all of whom were seeking a reconstruction of tho system of education in their countries. At Columbia University ho was granted two fellowships. There was, he continued, a general feeling and hope that the depression would last long enough to make the people realise that the system of education must be reconstructed if we were to develop a people able to cope with tho evci' more rapidly changing conditions. The intelligence (not academic attainment) of the people was the real capital of the nation, and all agreed that ■ the traditional method was unsuitable —a mere milling of a costly and conscious activity inadequate for new times. . From Columbia, University Mr. Jacobsen Went to India. There he was appointed a professor of Sir Rabinflranath Tagore-'s International Ashram — an international university. Then he went to Dacca University. At Dacca he had the offer of a great experiment. Ho was given a free hand to introduce new methods, new subject matter, etc. —a great trust which only big people have, the power to bestow. There, research was carried out very successfully with students who could scarcely understand a word of English. So successful was Mr. Jaeobsen's work at Dacca that there is.a keen desire that he should return. , LIFE IN ©BEAT VARIETY. Ho saw schools and universities of all ki/ls. He attended two religious conferences, a pan-Pacific conference of the Student Christian-movement at Vancouver, and a seminar held by Dr. Shaman at Camp Minessing in the east of Canada. While in India, he called on Annie Besant and met many learned Buddhist and Hindu philosophers. He worked with all societies and classes of people. For example, he worked his way in a dining-car to Winnipeg, fished with Norse fishermen in tfie salmon" fisheries at Puget ] Sound (where Rex Beach wrote his "Silver Horde"), and drove in the biggest engines for''thousands- of miles round tho northern shores of Lake Superior, rinding this not hard enough •—Mr. Jacobsen. is a.veritable dynamo of energy—lie. got fit by stoking lus way in a goods engine, and another experience was motoring thousands of: miles through Saskatchewan with •_»' party from Canadian National Railways- under Dr.-Murray, president of Saskatchewan University, and one ot the'trustees of <the powerful Carnegie Institute. There they studied the Scandinavian, German, Icelandic, Polish, Dukobor, Russian, and other communities, which had not jet been assimilated. Mr. Jacobsen travelled through the forest with an Indian, Jack Whiteduck, a famous trapper to whom he became very attached and. who invited him to go trapping. He flew over many of the lakes in Canada with the superintendent of the forest areas. He lost himself once: on the lakes, and many a night fell asleep in his Indian canoe after long watching of the Aurora Borcalis. and its wondrous curtains of light. ■ ' , Mr. Jacobsen has been down coal mines, and visited steel and glass works to learn of, the working conditions of the people." He was motored right over the great State of New York, and among other interesting things he did while in America was to go under Niagara Falls. VISIT TO INDIA. la India, Mr. Jaeobsen' travelled north, south, east, and west. He tried turtle hunting in Karachi; he was in the midst of Hindu-Moslem riots at Bombay, and was invited .by Tagore (to whom reference has been made'earlier); to visit Gandhi on the occasion, of his breaking his famous fast. Ho talked with Malveja r president of Benares Hindu University. Gandhi, Tagore, and Malveja, said Mr. Jacobsen, were the three icaders of the Indian people. He had many .interesting experiences in India, but all the time, he said, the one thought was ever before him—the study of the problems of education, so that if wanted by his people he cotiid help in the reconstruction qf education in New.Zealand, for what was advocated by the highest authorities was diametrically opposed to that which was practised in most parts of the world. ~• ' t l. In tho field- of sport Mr. Jacobsen played golf on many, links. He had plenty of tennis, and captained the leading team at Dacca, "the centre of the terrorist movement where the Europeans all pack revolvers at their hips." In America he played a little handball, and saw American 'football, basketball, and baseball. At Vancouver he met Percy Williams, the young Canadian who'won the 100 and 200 metres track events at the 1928 Olympic Games, and in Calcutta he > was invited to coach the members of the Olympic Athletic Club. Another invitation extended- to him on his interesting travels was-to hunt tigers with tw°o famous- shikars in India and Burma. -