W.E.A. NOTES

Evening Star, Issue 20254, 15 August 1929, Page 14

W.E.A. NOTES

EDUCATION AND THE MACHINE AGE

Recent speakers and writers liave drawn attention to the “ menace of the machine.” What part can education do in- solving the evils of monotonous work, wasted leisure, increasing complexity, unemployment, and war? There are many theories aiming at solving the problem of unemployment, but the selection and application of the correct one depends on the diffusion of knowledge on economics among the people. If mankind is-likely to he destroyed hv another war, if the industrial system is becoming too complicated for us to control, if unemployment will extend with the industrialisation of - society, then there is only ono method by which these evils can ho avoided, and that js education. .MONOTONOUS WORK. About 90 per cent, of the ford employees are classed as unskilled. The work they do is so subdivided that tor auv physically lit workman a few hours’ training is sufficient. The tendency of the ago is to make the worker more and more a mere 1 automaton. There are hundreds •of -soul-wearied -mechanics wlio do nothing:'; from year, to year blit put a certain. 1 bolt-into a certain part of a certain-machine. If the men thus employed were incapable of doing mpro difficult work, then few evils would follow, but psychologists are agreed - -that the - , great ; majority of human. beings. need greater satisfaction than they are getting in specialised monotonous work. The evils arc both personal and social. The worker turns to vicious or futile pleasures that arc dangerous to himself and to society. The criniQ wave in America may be connected with the increasing mechanisation bringing over-increasing bustle, speeding up, noise for citizens gene-, rally, and loss of skill for workers affected. Sometimes the men get drank; sometimes they go on strike. Psychologists'already are tracing a connection between monotonous work and industrial disputes. Says Prolessor Myers: Generally speaking, the more intelligent the worker, the more irksome becomes routine work, and the more difficult- becomes the maintenance of the required attitude, because of the intellectual processes for more varied occupation.” Yet apparently industry needs monotonous work. Two types of monotonous work require different solutions. The work, while monotonous, may require attention, particularly if the speed is or it may become so mechanical that the worker can think of other things. In the latter case the worker may

“day dream”; ho may be able to let his mind wander to things that can give him (or her) satisfaction, such as a beautiful scene, the writing of a poem, the solution of a problem, and so; on. In some factories works of art aro placed, around the walls, or a gramophone may he played, or the workers be encouraged to sing and dance. It would still be true to say, however, that education can be of tremendous value in providing thoughts for such workers.

There is, however, a general belief that human beings _ require the opportunity to develop skill. Dr L. P. Jacks rates skill far above the i;ight to happiness, and skill is generally acquired at work. If, therefore, the exercise of skill is as necessary for a healthy human .''being as is good food, and if, also, some of. tho jobs are too strenuous to permit of “ day dreaming,” then the problem will have to bo attacked in another way. Industry will have to provide increased leisure, so that tl® evils" of mass production can be limited as ranch as possible, and so. that the worker can find in .the- leisured hours the skill that industry cannot give. To-day it is clear that the evils of tho machine ago aro being'' intensified by tho methods of employing the leisure hours, and that only from tho adult education movement can there bo found both the inspiration ami the methods of healthy uso of leisure.

In his book, ‘ Tho iron Man in Industry,’ Mr Arthur Pound concludes from wide American experience that for the inhabitants of a town dominated by automatic machinery the educational problem is to train youth for tho right use of leisure. “ Why waste time,” he- says, “ teaching city children how to work, when their chief need is to know how to liver” What was once a. privilege for an arrogant aristocracy has become a necessity for an arrogant democracy. He continues; " Fundamental in education for leisure is inculcation of self-restraint, but this will not start anything. Its virtue is negative.- What the ego-motor needs is fuel, something upon which it can travel, literature, science, art, music.” undoubtedly leisure—skills are increasing, both extensively and intensively. The increasing number of public tennis courts, a swimming baths in tho industrial centres, strikes everyone. Other leisure —skills which are wide-spread arc dancing, motoring, and tho amateur construction of wireless apparatus.

From tho point of view of solving the problem of monotonous work tho last tw > activities are most important. They imply some mechanical skill ami considerable mechanical knowledge among many people who thirty years ago would hot have possessed any corresponding skill or knowledge. A building trade worker, Air John Gibson, in a recent number of the ‘ Realist,’ draws attention to the increasing interest being taken by workers in wireless, an interest which most significantly is increased by tho fact that wireless is not recognised as part of tho science that displaces labour by machinery. “A wireless set of some description will bo found in most working class homes,” he writes, “ and_ it is "truly amazing to hear tho .quantity of semi-technical terras connected with

wireless with which the workers are conversant.' They have gained, too, a rapid-knowledge of- the parts, and method of construction of sets, and it is seldom that a, worker buys a wireless set outright, slim finance more often compels him to buy one part each week —and build _ tho thing, himself.” Another point is that he invariably starts by having a crystal set and ends up with a valve set. “ Given the chance tho worker will learn,” says Mr Gibson, indicating the other side of the attack on the - problem of monotonous work “ to day, as a result of broadcasting, one can often hear what were once quite obscure opera tunes being whistled or hummed by work people of very little education; and, presumably from tho same cause, it is noticeable that their vocabulary is being extended in no uncertain manner.” There is the final. hope that monotonous work may bo eliminated by the .further extension of machinery. Social and economic modifications would thereby be necessary to avoid the evils of unemployment by increased leisure, and to see that increased leisure was not wasted but the elimination of monotonous work may be brought about by social pressure. Dr Jack mentions that one of the results of tho new system of education in Italy was to diminish the supply of boys and girls for blind alloy occupations. Under that system boys and girls are definitely trained for a skilful occupation, and the consequence is that when they leave school they are increasingly unwilling to earn their living by labour in which no skill is requrecl—though often, no doubt, they find themselves compelled to do so. At .every step in the effort to solve the problems of increasing mechanisation, through education, the solutions must be approached.