CITIZENSHIP

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 236, 18 September 1934, Page 5

CITIZENSHIP

The Modern World

A UNIVERSITY WEAKNESS

In a paper at the Liberal Summer School, Oxford, Sir Ernest Bimon said that education in Britain had bee« mainly vocational and cultural, but citizenship had been neglected. "People go 'to the provincial universities mainly to equip themselves to earn a better living," he said. "Specialisation has become, more and more narrow, and students know one subject in a scholarly way, and nothing else. There is an extraordinary lack of direct teaching of citizenship at Oxford and Cambridge, and the teaching of modern history seems to have ended about the year 1873. Yet in Oxford University there is an astonishing array of professorial talent on the subject of citizenship. I believe that only 20 per cent, of the students of Oxford leave with any interest in the affairs of the modern world. Universities are not doing their job in producing citizens and leaders who will help up to clear thinking about political affairs on which civilisation is in danger of crashing. The best years for the teaching of citizenship are between the ages of 16 and 18."

Discussing Sir E. Simon’s paper, Sir Arthur Salter, the economist, said: "I should like to see it impossible for anyone in this country to tuke a university degree, particularly an honours degree, unless be had added to the spe cialist knowledge of his subject a framework of elementary general knowledge. It would be an advantage e-vefi to the specialist."