CONTRASTS IN EDUCATION

Evening Star, Issue 23881, 10 May 1941, Page 6

CONTRASTS IN EDUCATION

TOTALITARIAN AND DEMOCRATIC METHODS ADDRESS BY DR C. E, BEEBY Education as it has been and is being used,in totalitarian'countries and education as it must be developed in the democracies were contrasts drawn by Dr C. E. Beeby, Director of Education in New Zealand, in an address yesterday to the annual meeting of the Otago Branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute. Dr Beeby discussed the “ new freedom” in education—a much misunderstood phrase, he said—and dealt with a number of the ways in which teaching methods could be expanded. • Dr Beeby,first emphasised that there must be no stoppage of progress in class room methods in spite of the limitation on external facilities—buildings, materials, and so om—that would be an inevitable consequence of the war. ' “I shall never hide behind the excuse that the war must stop progress in teaching,” he said. “ There is in work in the class room a line of advance that is still open.” His excursions into means by which the Department of Education could give a lead in the correct use of this “new freedom” led Dr Beeby to the urgency of developing an education system successfully to combat the blind leadership that was the foundation of the totalitarian technique. “Somehow the democracies have to find a type of education tough enough and realistic enough to stand against the system,” he said. “We can never match Nazism and Fascism with its own methods. Through their education systems, Germany, Italy, and Russia have tapped sources of energy just as terrific as the Panzer mechanised divisions. Are we to attempt to match this? It would be hopeless. True democracy is dependent upon understanding, upon the tolerance of a reasonable opposition. Our job to-day is to give to the children a simplified pattern of democracy and to develop their way of life to include a full love and understanding of the freedom of the individual. “ The performances already of our men and women overseas,” be added, “ would suggest that so far we have not altogether failed in this respect.”

ELECTION OF OFFICE-BEARERS. The following were elected to office for tho ensuing year President, Miss Vera Hayward; vice-president, Air Thomas Wilson; secretary and treasurer, Mr A. Hanna; auditor, Mr D. Forsyth.