W.E.A.

Evening Star, Issue 20230, 18 July 1929, Page 7

W.E.A.

WOMEN AND ADULT EDUCATION There are more women than men attending adult education classes in New Zealand. The women attend all kinds of classes, but they are chiefly interested in cultural subjects like music or literature. Some have suggested that there are too many women—that the men, unable to keep the women intellectually in their places, exercise a protest by staying away! it is not so Jong since education for women was unknown. Women are still feeling the pleasures of freedom, and many express their freedom by attending W.E.A. classes. They feel they have three or four centuries to make up! The men know how to read and write, they have not been controlled to the same extent, and they believe they know everything! They have failed to keep the women always in the home, nut they sometimes keep up the sham of their superiority by dubbing the intellectual interests of the men as “effeminate.” Judging by the rapid expansion 'of women in political and intellectual life, it will not be long before progress will be hindered by the men who are showing their superiority to-day by playing billiards or watching football matches. Mr R. Berkeley, in his play, ‘The Lady With a Lamp.’ gives a dramatic moment by making Lord Palmerston say, in reply to Florence Nightingale’s suggestion that ho despises women; “Oh, no! 1 shouldn't be in the least surprised to find a woman in the Cabinet—say n 1930.' The subject of adult education of women raises the problems whether classes and tutors should be specialised for women, whether there should b© a distinction ii subject matter and methods of; treatment, whether there should be separate classes for men and women. The English report on “The Tutor in Adult Edulation ” believed that there wai. au urgent need for a greater supply of tutors for educational ivork among women. If such work were to be properly developed special provision must be made for women’s classes in the more elementary stages. Women want shorter, meie informal courses, involving less reading and written work, and often, as a first stage, arranged for them alone. The report gives the following reasons why separate classes should be {.mined: Since many women are not very used to public discussion they may be diffident about joining a mixed class; and if they do join, in most eases they take a very small part in the discussion. Their special point of view must be met, not so much by taking different subjects, as by trea'.dig them differently in relation to their special practical interests. Household duties generally make it easier to attend classes in the afternoon than in the evening. # • Since educational propaganda is at present best carried on through women’s organisations, classes can frequently be most conveniently arranged in connection with . these bodies. It is interesting to note that the Otago W.E.A. has found tuat its women’s class, conducted by Mrs Benson, has proved most .successful when linked up with the Y.W FA. In England; the W.E.A. holds nine classes specially for women, ■ ' *

POLITICS FOR WOMEN. While there is much truth in these opinions of adult educational experts, the need for separate classes for women must be placed more on the peculiar difficulties of getting women, especially married women, to the usual classes rather than on any artificial difference between the educational needs of women and men. Women need iniormation on, and arc interested "in the problems of the home. Home science should certainly bo a part of most women’s education, but it is both a fallacy and a danger to suppose that women should stop their education after the dishes have been washed and cleared away. Socks may need darning, and the children have to be put to bed, but the mother is also a citizen and the social and political problems are important for her. It is well that she should be able to cook properly, but the time 'may come when the husband is out ot work and there is no food t'oi her to cook. The woman, by the ignorant and careless way, in which she voted, may be responsible for the unemployment of her husband a few months later. Housing, film censorship, mental hygiene, taxation, all these affect the woman, and these are political questions. There is, therefore, as great a necessity lor woman to have a knowledge ot economics, sociology, and history as it is for men. There may be a particular method of approaching these questions for women, although this is doubtful, but there can he no denial ol the necessity' of politics for women. It is true that women are suspicions of polities, they seem to think that “politics” means “revolution’ and “economics” is the same as “confiscation,” but such false ideas are largely due to the failure to distinguish between the personalities of elections and the fundamental principles that are at stake. Here, in lact, lies one of the reasons why there should be no difference in the classes lor women and men, except as are due to the difficulty of finding the best time for women. There is a tendency' lor women to judge social questions from the personal experience or viewpoint. There is a tendency.to blame the individual for the social evil. An unemployed man thus is blamed because lie is lazy or selfish or a drunkard. On the other hand the man with experience of factory' life tends more correctly' to see the social changes that cause unemployment. A woman sees the husband of her neighbour and judges polities by him; the man has been one of a few hundreds dismissed from a job and so has a different method of approach. If separate classes for women are held because it' is believed that women have a different outlook, then stress should be put on the connection between the personal problem and the social one. In most eases, however, it will be found that a woman tutor is more important than . a different method of approach. The ideal ’' class is undoubtedly' the one where men and women meet as students, exchanging one another’s points of view, and aiming together at a better state. LITERATURE FOR MEN. If women should be interested in politics because politics mean food and shelter, men should be interested in cultural subjects because these mean a proper use of leisure. Dr L. P. Jacks has put the view that leisure and

work are connected, so that it is only by' making the work satisfying and interesting that leisure will be healthy, stimulating, and progressive. Dr Ernest Barker, on the other band, declares thus: “The supreme reason for a national system of education in an industrial society' is less that it iniroves the efficiency' of work, than that it corrects the effect of work; less that it prepares men for their vocations, than that it trains them to know, and to Jove, something older than their vocation, and helps them to fill the time and to use the faculties which are outside the area of work and belong to the spaces of leisure.” Men, perhaps more than women, require a guidance in the use of their leisure.

The Otago W.E.A. women’s class is discussing the industrial history of Great Britain. The necessity for women having a knowledge of the problems that arise in this study' was clearly' proved when the class visited the Roslyn Woollen Mills and saw the large number of women employed. All other classes are attended by both men and women, whether the subjects of study be literature, philosophy, economics, or music.