EDUCATION.

Grey River Argus, 30 May 1922, Page 6

EDUCATION.

FOR FREEDOM. On Saturday last Professor Shelley delivered before the Grey district teachers a lecture on Education for Freedom. Professor Sh-elley emphasised the necessity for a true understanding of the words: “Education” and “Freedom.” At the present time,’ we were commencing a new -era, but our ideas on education and freedom were still dominated by the beliefs of the 19th century. Education might be defined as “man’s purposive attempt to become more highly conscious of the nature of reality.” Education was not an aspect of life, it was life itself. It should not be considered as being confined merely to the years or a child’s school life, but it should, and did not end till death. No freedom could come without a high quality of education fur all. Freedom, did not consist in doing as one pleased, but it necessitated I obedience to law and order. V\ hen this law was imposed from without, freedom was impossible. The truest form of freedom consisted in obedience to laws or social customs which the individual who obeyed had a shart in imposing ion himself. A true democracy eoulu only come through the development oi a high social discipline. In New Zealand, as in other countrlesf ihe school everted too many repressive influences on the child-reading, writing, aritiunetic and other formal school subjects were simply useful tools but ( in these subjects was too often regarded as an end in itself. Expression, not repression should be aimed at. The ideal of education was not to make children into more or less perfect |utations of adults but to encourage the maximum development of the child at any particular stage oi his growth. Education must b-c based on the experience of the child himself not on the experience of ihe adults whose attitude towards lif-e was so different from that of the child. Society cannot be understood by the chilu by the receiving of intellectual information concerning administration. Society must De created in simple and more "and more complex forms as his own needs in life involve active association with his fellows. The barrier between school community must Therefore bo broken down and the school must become an ordered system, of life in itseii. •;