POINTS FROM SPEECHES

Evening Post, Issue 36, 12 February 1935, Page 7

POINTS FROM SPEECHES

HERESIES OF SOCIALISM

TRAINED INTELLIGENCE

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, January 12. , Sir Francis Gbodenough,. chairman. of the British Association for Commercial and Industrial Education, addressing the Conference of Schoolmasters and College Tutors at Canibridge^aid that the vitally important business of marketing the products of this great industrial country had been regarded by all too many of those engaged in . it as something that "anyone can pick up," so that young men and women ■ went into business without previous suitable education or training and.got such knowledge and skill as .theyjultimately possessed as best they could, with little, if any, specific education or training either from without" or within the business in which? "they were engaged. The same principles applied to selling lemons ;as to selling locomotives, to selling meat as to. sell- ' ing motor-cars. Those principles constituted the science, and their application in each industry the art, of ■commerce; and the study ,of that, science and of that art had advanced little in the past 25 years because the existence of the fundamental science had,.not been recognised. . ■ " He hoped that'everyone in this' country would realise that the.day" of science was here in commercr'as-in industry and would grasp the supreme importance of' having adequately educated and skilfully . trained men and women-.in all ranks of commerce, from the management down. We were under the imperative necessity, las a nation, to attach more value tOr^ahd accordingly, pay a higher price for— • character plus brains'raised-to their highest power by education, or in the alternative,'"we, should go down in the field of commerce, defeated by those , who already had realised the needs of commerce in this, highly competitive and increasingly scientific world. It had been/truly, said that :"the race which does not value' < trained .intelligence is doomed." •'.■.■"-' ■"- £ TRAmmG iFOR xife; ii Dr. Cyrfl "Norwdod, president' of . St.' John's College, Oxford,'vrtior.also ■ addressed the conference, saia ..that the 500,000 secondary school' scholars were all-important for: the. futui^e of this country, rather'than the 5,000,000 elementary scholars- or ..the 50,000 in public schools. He said that secondary schools, should put out br their minds the fact that;'„ they were * preparing candidates for ; industry,„ com- ' merce, or; the blackcoated professions, and'remember that they were preparing their pupils for life. Every school should have' a side for the training of eye, ear, and' hand, buf beyond; this the . specialisation of -training should be left to industry, itself?'except, of course, those . establishments devoted, solely to a branch of industry such as engineering or- agriculture. General education, in which physical fitness, mental, alertness,, and >fitness for life were developed, should be'continued to the age of 18.' . <-' WHAT SOCIALISM IS NOT. In a message to the conference .of the Federation of University Conservative and Unionist, Associations ."the Prime Minister (Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald) wrote:— ' " -'/- "I wish,: in thel interest of "clear thinking, that other terms coul<£be found . for certain creeds which* disguise themselves under" the Sb^list name, but which ? embody' neither . Socialist principles nor' Socialist methods.. For-example, there is what is called 'Poplarism.' I would define that as a reckless application of^oor Law duties and,an inculcation of habits which must' end' in an impoverished nation. That.way leads not to S_ocial-V ism" but to the pauper State. Then there.is.the.belief that.by "a. few-:Acts of Parliament iyou can reduce alhighly complex society to a simple pne,and change social structure and habits as you i change your clothes. That-way leads to chaos in industry, but not to Socialism. ■ .- .. ;:I.r. "Also, there are those . who tfiink that they can recreate society In terms of class and the class war/•' T^iave always fought them because -they would destroy for ever the chance's of an organic co-operative State.- -These short-sighted proposals, are , t the,,ieal danger and' threaten' none1 more'-jjhan the wage-earner today." ' V* ;- WOBLD OP SPECIALISTS. £ ' Lord Eustace Percy, in an adcjress to.- the conference of public schoolmasters at Harrow:— -3. i "It seems to me to be more and more doubtful whether we are remenflber- ' ing in all our liberal and progressive ideas that the prime function of X*the school is to'train7 the.intellect. •£ . "The. world; is, getting:. fuller land fuller of peoplewho' canno'f think Tout-, side" their speciality, arid the position is not helped.by the trend of *t»ur educational psychological,thought-and the,trend of the - sociological sand anthropological sciences which teria^ in- . creasingly to put reason into, the background and to speak in terms of nlkn's almost instinctive adaptibn to-^'en-vironment. : . . ~•■''".'• - "We are turning out from our scliools better and better products, meniSand women more human and more reasonable and more skilled in many Ways than former generations, but we-'are turning them out in increasing quant*" ties, and'-of all classes, and' froriv aM types of schools who. do not kao*, how to think outside their speciality. "Particularly do' they not think; i» the most important; sphere, of huma* activity, the relation of .man to ma* the relation of man to society, thelwa^ - society ought tc> be - governed, ' principles of government, , the jgrin» ciples of conduct between nitions^naw In his relation to the world, and«6iar in his relation to God." ■'.-.• t: