A NECESSITY

Hokitika Guardian, 12 August 1937, Page 3

A NECESSITY

TO TRAIN CRITICAL THINKERS

SAFEGUARD FOR DEMOCRACY

SYDNEY, August 4

Thoughtful people who presumed to criticise faults in the existing social order should not be condemned as Cpmmuni'/s, but hailed as staunch friends and champions of democracy; < So Professor F. AY. Hart, of California University, who has come to? Australia to attend the world conference of the New Education Fellowship, to be held iii l Brisbane,' Sydney/ and Melbourne, said yesterday. Democracy,., he said, could not survive the-, tidal wave of dictatorships now sweeping-the world, unless it rested on a base of an informed, critical, thinking public. “On my way over to Australia T was told the universities here were turning out Communists,” added Dr. Hart. “The primary purpose, of a university is to produce critical thinkers, and if it fails to do this, it has failed in its job. • “But if critical thinking IS to he dubbed Communism, then I say that we stand in need of some of the principles of Communisfp even in a democracy.” , , ■ ... Social training, said Dr. Hart, played a very big part in American schools, and it was realised by jnany of the leading educationalists that social intelligence was the most important aspect of the training of young people. ' .

Mr •». r. Hankip, who,istrepresenting the-British Minister ,for , E,duration at the conference, said that amazing strides had been mat]? ? n England in the use of wireless and' films as adjuncts to education. The vast possibilities of the educational film, he said, had scarcely been touched. Dr. L. Malherbe, educational research specialist, attached to the South African Government, said that vocational guidance and psycho-analysis were of particular importance in South Africa, where black labour did all the unskilled work, and the white men had to take up employment calling for special training. Rural Sociology is the special province of Dr. Edmund' Brunner, of USA. fts aim is to extend to rural areas, as fully and as cheaply as possible, all the social services enjoyed by town dwellers, he said.' ;