PROBLEM OF LEISURE

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 47, 24 February 1934, Page 23

PROBLEM OF LEISURE

EDUCATIONIST'S VIEW

(By Telegraph.) . (Special to the "Evening Post") AUCKLAND, February 23. "To teach people how best to use the greater leisure that they are .bound to enjoy in the future is the great task of the educationist today,*' said Professor R. G. Cameron, Professor of Education in the; University of Western Australia, who passed through Auckland by the Monterey .today. Professor Cameron has 'b'eeiv ,on>a world tour studying educational ■•methods in Britain, Europe, Russia/: ■ the United States, and Canada. . ' s

"It does not require any great prophetic powers to state that the work^ ing man of tomorrow is going to enjoyeven' greater leisure than he enjoys today," Professor Cameron said. ■In the United States they are aiming at a working week of 32 hours. In Eussia a man works-five days of seven hours each, and every sixth day is clear. People will start work' older and ro-

tire younger, and the. test of civilisation will lie in how leisure is used."

Adult education, however, -was only one- side of the 4ues*i°n. The world was slowly realising that it was not necessary to send a youth to work until he had reached the age of 18. Consideration was necessary to see how young people could best be kept . at school until that age. Whether education should be cultural or vocational was a problem which wa3 still exercising the brains of leading educationists, but it was doubtful whether' there was yet a sufficient variety of schools for pupils between the ages of 14 and IS.

Professor Cameron said he had been greatly impressed by the systems of organised physical training for. university students in the United States and Canada. In Germany, too, considerable attention was being paid to physical development, but the Germans under Hitler were taking life very seriously. Among intellectual classes there was a saying that "silence is golden; writing is prison."