ADULT EDUCATION.

Evening Star, Issue 23422, 13 November 1939, Page 6

ADULT EDUCATION.

The Association for Country Education appears to have reached a precarious stage in its history. Founded a few years ago, it has been dependent for financial support chiefly upon funds supplied by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the administration of the fund being in the hands of the University of Otago and Canterbury College. The object of the association, as stated by Dr James Hight was to show what could be done in providing an efficient service for rural areas in culture, such as music and art, library service, home science, and kindred subjects. Dr Hight is convinced that the experiment has been eminently successful. The Carnegie grant has, however, been diminishing, and will finally disappear at the end of this year. The work cannot go on after that date unless funds are found within New Zealand. Adult education, of which the New Zealand Association for Country Education forms a section, has developed rapidly in many countries during the past forty years Another typical instance of such an organisation is the Workers’ Educational Association, which was founded in Dunedin in 1915. It, too, was maintained largely by funds derived from the Carnegie Corporation. The W.E.A. was followed by other associations of a somewhat similar character, and eventually by the Association for Country Education, the objects of which are of a more varu I nature ■ For close on a-quarter of a century, therefore, the benefits of adult education have been available in New Zealand for residents of city and country, and the experience gained has been valuable The attitude of the people for whom the movement was specially designed has not been particularly encouraging. It would not bo correct or just to say that the movement has failed. On the contrary, it may be claimed that a great deal of true educational work has been accomplished, and that many men and women owe to it their intellectual awakening. On the other hand, it is questionable if adult education as an institutiou has been established in this country. In

its earlier days it attracted the attention of men and women with a natural instinct for education, but it seems to have lost its hold upon the working classes.

From the beginning the work has never been self-supporting, and there is apparently no possibility of its over becoming so; but that it should become self-supporting was never anticipated or expected. The most serious aspect of the position seems to be its failure to secure the adherence of the people. Attendance at the classes is, of course, voluntary, and while that characteristic would undoubtedly impart a glory to studies undertaken for the pure sake of knowledge, it permits of a great deal of coming and going, and tends to the selection of superficial subjects of study. Whether these weaknesses will bo overcome with greater experience remains to be proved What can hardly be gainsaid is that adult education has not yet become established, at all events in these parts of the country. And now that the financial resources of the work have become depleted, there is q danger of the complete collapse of the structure that has been laid with so much toil and thought during the past twenty-five years. Those responsible for the work will no doubt at once give their diligent attention to the position, and there ought to be an overhauling of the whole situation.