EMPIRE IN EDUCATION.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 19 July 1924, Page 11

EMPIRE IN EDUCATION.

A TRAVELLING COLLEGE. INTEREST IN THE DOMINIONS. Reference was made at the Conference on Imperial Education to a scheme for organising a travelling college which had as its object the study of the Dominions on the spot. It was Sir Henry Hadow (Vice-Chancellor of the Sheffield University), who brought up the subject, and a letter suggested the scheme for last year. Air. Christopher Storrs, who was the other writer on the .subject last year, again addressed The Times on the matter.

‘The sympathetic words of Sir Henry Hadow,” he says, “and the letter from Dr. H. B. Gray which followed, encourage the hope that the idea of Eimpire travel as a means of education in citizenship will soon not merely be iy the air but rooted in the ground. Wembley is magnificent, both as a centre for Imperial pageantry—a stimulus to imagination—-and also as an object-lesson in Imperial resources. But even Wembley suffers from this limitation (apart from its, transitory nature) that its emphasis is on things rather than on men, on resources rather than on persons. And that which in the long run will keep the British peoples united in one Commonwealth is not more utility but mutual sympathy and knowledge'. “My letter to you in July last, which was supported by Dr.* Gray, outlined a scheme for a travelling college which would aim at the study of the Dominions upon the spot—a year's course for men of university * age, which c-ould include periods spent with Dominion families, and a course of ■study on hoard, pursued as far as possible, in the atmosphere of a university. The scheme, which received a sympathetic though cautious article in The Educational Supplement of The limes, was afterwards ventilated widely both at Horne among leading educationists and others and in South Africa 1. retoria, and Johannesburg among leading men of many professions (and including several Dutchmen) 1 found, together with a certain amount- of scepticism, a degree of interest and enthusiasm which .1 had scarcely expected St nee then I have had sympathetic letters from Canada, Australia, and Australia, and-South Africa itself. At home, the idea has met with a considerable degree of sympathy, though it, is vc-ry natural that those placed in high >~diicational positions should view such schemes with the caution of Gamaliel. TO ENSURE SUCCESS. ‘To ensure the success of the scheme two th,tigs are needed: (1) to quote Hie Educational Supplement, ‘prepara--2 , )abo «r.s of the most substantial kind and (2) a considerable entlowment. And if this latter point prookes the smile of cynicism, 1 would urge that- such a scheme as this is as deserving of generous endowment, as f'''tl the great schools and colleges d tlie past. Education i„ this cm in . Gy has moved forward in spurts fa arated by long intervals) of enthusiasm and adventurousness, ami in each ease progress has been made possible bv the public-spirited generosity of faro-e----nunded men. Here, surely. i s the opportunity for a new venture, which may rival those of the past in its efl ert upon citizenship within the British Commonwealth.”