THE Y.W.C.A.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 208, 1 August 1935, Page 4

THE Y.W.C.A.

AN EDUCATIONAL FORCE. In his “Story of a Great Schoolmuster,” Mr H. G. Wells says that the verse of Scripture most frequently quoted by that great educator, F. W. Sanderson, the verse which in his later days became the motto of the Otindle School, was: “I come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” In these words of the Master Teacher Sanderson found summed tip tiro whole purpose and aim of education as he conceived it. In them he found the standard by which to test the value of all education and every educational process. That which brings life, abundant . life, is good; that which fails in this is failing altogether.

Education has not always been thus conceived. Many of us, says a writer, can look back to years spent in schools where the chief purpose of education seemed to he to give us information on certain subjects. The teachers told us some things, and the books we studied told us some things, and we were considered successfully, or unsuccessfully educated according to how fully and accurately we were able to recite the facts thus learned. We were not expected to question whether what we learned was or was not developing personality and helping us to live abundantly. The test of our education was how much wo knew about the subjects we were being taught. This is a century-old conception of education. “Our young people,” says a recent writer, “are not educated for tiro vocation of living. We have thought of education as something the teacher does to the pupil.” Education in the minds of these thinkers is not the acquisition of knowledge. 11 is rather “a continual process of the discovery of one’s self and of one’s world, and a continual adjustment of one's self to one’s world.” In othei words, we are being told that it is people that matter. Subjects are important only as a means to an end. They are of much or little value according to the degree to which they educate the people who are studying them. And because jteople are different, different in inheritance, background, environment, abilities, temperament, occupations and interests, the subject which may be supremely useful iu the education of Susan Smith may be of little value to Mary. Jones.

With such a conception of education and its purpose, the Young Women's Christian Association finds itseli in hearty accord. For the association is supremely interested in persons. Its great concern is not with subjects-, however valuable or important .they may he, but with girls and women. It works on the assumption “that education is that which makes for complete living.” and therefore thinks in plans and carries out its work in terms of a girl's whole life, body, mind, and spirit. It studies a girl, becomes aware of her need, and proceeds to trj and stimulate the desire in her to satisfy that need —whether it he physical fitness, mental alertness, and development, opportunities of service and creative outlet or. companionship, and makes available avenues by which she can pursue that which is lacking for the full development of her personality. This is often a slow process, but is marvellously worth while and profitable, both to the individual and in the building of citizenship. It is the spiritual purpose of education at work—which is not concerned with one separate capacity among many, but which concerns all capacities developed and drawn together in a harmonVius effort.

r l'his is the purpose to which the Y.W.C.A. is committed —tlie reason folks very existence. It is expressed in the words of its world-wide motto:

“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” Is such work worthy of your support P Will vou become a sustaining member? Will you assist with our Queen Joan Thompson? The Y.W.C.A. will retain the proceeds from their one queen only.