EDUCATION AND CHANGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 51, 2 March 1937, Page 15

EDUCATION AND CHANGE

•A-lecture.on "Education and Inevitable Change" was giyen.' by ' Mr. F. Coombs, director ■■ of the Teachers Training College, in a recent * lecture to the" Wellington Theosophical Society. Education in the ultimate, he said; had only one purpose and'func-tion.-and that-was. to develop national consciousness and outlook,- and those most concerned with educational institutions had grave doubts as to the ability of present-day methods to produce desired results. Our education systems suffered from a serious time lag—they failed to coincide with life and ideas. Educationists the world over were awakening to the necessity for this synchronisation and until it was achieved we could.not hop-, for an .all-round development. A mental and spiritual education was necessary to develop in the peoples of the world wisdom that would remove the feeling of insecurity which dominated man s life at'present. ■• "■'• For so long the streams of tendency had converged to one point, utilitarianism. .We had learned to control .the forces of Nature and -to produce an adequate • supply of'- everything' necessary' forourmaterialrieeds atid'at the same time had' failed rto" overcome the devastating menace of. wars and poverty. With the change in education that "was inevitable if man' was to survive .and fulfil his mission upon the earth, we could hope that the adjust-ment-between its ideals1 and.life would ere long meet the heeds of humanity and the reward would more than compensate the effort if . man attained his full stature through education.