CULTURAL ASPECT

Evening Post, Issue 13, 16 January 1936, Page 10

CULTURAL ASPECT

MODERN EDUCATION

SCIENCE AND RESEARCH

ENLARGED OUTLOOK

(Special to the "Evening Post.")

AUCKLAND, This. Day.

Wars migh£ come, political upheavals might take place, and Governments might go out of office, but the amazing progress and development of science continued, declared the Hon. J. A. Hanan, Chancellor of the University of New Zealand, in his address to the annual meeting of the Senate today. Science was daily adding to the store of knowledge which gave man more power • over the forces of Nature, and science was ever making known some new discovery or invention which provided new light for the advancement of human welfare.

"As a result of scientific discoveries and invention, I believe," said Mr. Hanan, "that one of the most dominant facts in our history is the constant contraction of the world. What with the radio, which overleaps all national boundaries, movies, aviation, improved means of communication and transport, and so on, all countries are being brought much closer together. The world has .grown immeasurably smaller. With the narrowing and contraction of the earth, problems which at one time were isolated are today becoming common problems throughout the world. There has been an enlargement of the part each country plays in the world. Hence the need for a new world outloc'.c.

'' "Chemists are not to be condemned I because their discoveries, made in the spirit of inquiry and for some useful purpose, are utilised for the purposes 6f war. The beauty of a beautiful vase is not impaired by its being put to a vile use, and the man who made it will" not be to blame. Scientists in their defence point out that the discovery of anaesthetics ; and antiseptics alone has saved more human suffering than' all that caused in the Great War by the misuse of other discoveries of the chemists.

"When we think of the wonderful power for good chemistry is, there is presented a convincing. case for its being encburaged by Governments, by industry, and by commerce in the affairs of everyday life. The need for more research is so^urgent and the economic, benefits are so recognised that reports from many parts make it clearly' manifest that there are growing up in a number of civilised countries, side by side with the universities, great specialist, institutions • with staffs devoted to research, with adequate buildings and equipment, with endowments, often with State subsidies, enjoying facilities for study which put the universities out of the running. AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE AND RESEARCH. "We haye in New Zealand two agricultural colleges, kriown as the Massey Agricultural College and the Canterbury Agricultural College. There is also the Cawthron Institute." They have admittedly done good work, but the need for their further development and for being made of more'beneficial | use to pur farming population deserves to be strongly emphasised in order that further financial assistance and better organisation should be provided, especially in the interests of research work. I have heard it alleged by those competent to express an opinion on the subject that the present system,1 whereby the Agricultural Department has assumed the responsibility for organised research as well as for the administration of regulations, does not make for real efficiency. .Agricultural research, they contend; should be made the responsibility of the colleges and of such institutions as the Cawthron Institute. • Such a change, it is asserted, would 'mean that the State and the farming community whick has! to meet such fierce competition from rivals in the markets of the world would receive a better return for money spent in research and in teaching, so far as primary industries are concerned. There are good grounds for suggesting that better methods should, be adopted to ensure that a knowledge of the discoveries made by the, members of the college staffs will be rapidly disseminated throughout the country and put into practice. I am satisfied from the reports that have been made to methat -there is justification for a strong claim being made for increased facilities being provided for the*prosecution of research and for liberal financial support being accorded to that object. . . ' "The increased large sums of money which are given in England and Scotland to the various institutions engaged in research work are, an object lesson as attesting a sense of recognition by Britain of the great benefits derived by her farmers from research" activities.

HUMAN AND CULTURAL EDUCATION. :

"There is another and higher branch of education than that of scientific research; I refer how to human and cultural education, because of the fact that moral arid spiritual progress has lagged behind that of material progress, leading to an unbalanced civilisation . "with growing evidence of degenerating tendencies, and dangerous forces that threaten, the fabric of civilisation. . ■'•'■', "Sir Josiah Stamp, in the course of an illuminating article which appeared in one of-the English universities'> reviews on the subject of 'Academic Life and the Economic Outlook,' makes these thought-compelling statements: 'I have been emphasising the quality of synthesis and the hidden connection between the most remote events —what has been recently referred to as "the altogetherness of everything. This of course, is philosophy at its best and highest, and if the university is not the home of synthetic and composite thinking; with a background of historical fact and philosophical ideas, we must despair of it altogether. The half unacknowledged insistence upon wealth as the chief of life's values and the hectic search for it have tended to obscure the fact that even wealth itself on a large scale can only be secured by stability of mind and temperament. Material wealth itself will be destroyed by moral and mental ineptitude. In a general insistence upon life's relative values we get round again to-some of the more elementary and often discounted insistences upon their moral aspects. The whole fabric of materialistic society, which is.now under■such particular: stress, is dependent for its survival upon certain immaterial and moral characteristics; grit, mental poise, and intrinsic belief in the superiority of intellectual solutions over mere drifting. There must be a persistent appeal to realism, and an application of scientific methods to a continually widening area of human experience. Every university ought to aim at being not. only a steadying influence in its own centre, but also a contribution to the new world outlook. , NECESSARY KNOWLEDGE. "Reading recently "an article contained in an issue of JThe Hibbert Journal,' I was impressed with the following forcible observations contained therein:— 'Things are in the saddle, and ride mankind. Man is the spiritless slave of his own inventions. He claims to have achieved the conquest of the air In brutal truth the air has con-