The Evening Star FRIDAY, JULY 21, 1939. ARE WE UNCULTURED?

Evening Star, Issue 23324, 21 July 1939, Page 8

The Evening Star FRIDAY, JULY 21, 1939. ARE WE UNCULTURED?

In the analysis, extending over thirty years, and published by the Educational Research Council, of the New Zealand ‘ School Journal,’ on which we commented yesterday,, one statement is made which will probably come as a slight shock to a large number of readers. “ Much that appears in the ‘ Journal,’ Mr 1). R, Jenkins writes, “ can be explained only by our ‘ pioneer culture.’ The backblbcks of North America, Australia, and New Zealand gave an advantage to the individual who was resourceful, practical, and capable of turning his hand to almost anything. . . . The 1 Journal,’ in its stories of successful men, delights to mention the hero’s lack of school training. Cook, Nelson, and Clive, who are cases in point, are among the characters whose biographies appear most often.” And he goes on to say: “Although the anti-cultural bias has now practically disappeared, the early ‘ Journals ’ abound in such statements as * no matter how clever or how educated a man may be, he is worthless without character OHOB ‘ Journal ’).’ ‘ Educated ’ *in this quotation does not imply character, hut is set in opposition to it. This gives a clue to many of the attitudes of the earlier ‘ Journals,’ and, it may be said, of Now Zealand education in general. Intellectual interests are regarded as quite suitable for those who cun alford them, but at the same time such interests arc rather suspect on the grounds of effeminacy and lack of • character.’ It is possible that this, too, is iu part an inheritance from the ‘ pioneer culture,’ for Professor E. Clarke has made a somewhat similar observation on Canada.”

Is it possible that Mr Jenkins stretches his case too far, when he suggests past encouragement of this “ social attitude” h,y the ‘Journal’;* Its statement that 11 no matter how clever or how educated a man may he. he is worthless without character ” is one with which we should think it unnecessary lo find fault, as . regards either

the sentiment or its expression. It is not implied) that character and education aro incompatible with each other, and such an implication, if it worn made teaching for schools, would bo an absurdity as well as an outrage. I bo heroes of “ self-help ” are national heroes, not for what they Jacked but for what they achieved in spite of disabilities. But whether an “anti-cul-tural bias ” lias been helped by the •School Journal’ or not, there is authority for regarding it ns a past “ social attitude ” of Now Zealanders. A democracy, one imagines, must be fairly well represented by its Parliament, and of New Zealand's Parliament, when he considered it some decades ago, Mr Sidney Webb, who is not a “Tory,” had this to say; “The great reproach which can be made against the New Zealand Government is without doubt its complete vulgarity. It is a failing common to all New Zealanders, though it appears under different forms witli different people With few exceptions, and without distinction of parties, there is a vulgarity of ideas and an absence of refinement among politicians which is the result of the pioneer life that they have led.” Mr William Peniber Reeves, writing in 1924, noted “ an important change of feeling ” in the New Zealand public, which he thought became more apparent with the late ’nineties, the result of which was to “ make a fetish of the commonplace in public life.” Mr Reeves writes: “ The last legislator known to have made a good joke died quietly in Wellington in 1897.’” has it, in 1924, as had as that? Would Mr Reeves revise his opinion if he were alive still, and could listeu-in to our parliamentary debates?