A RACE WITH CATASTROPHE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 23 May 1936, Page 2

A RACE WITH CATASTROPHE

EDUCATION’S PART Dr. Cyril Norwood, the Conference of New Ideals in Education at Oxford, spoke of the part winch education must play in equipping the nation to meet the difficulties winch face the world. There were views advanced to-day in many quarters which, Dr. Norwood said, filled him with disgust. Patriotism was held up to derision. Empire was laughed at and Imperialism held up as the humbug of scoundrels. That was to forswear the mission of the British nation to the world. Talk of the formation of cliaracter was now regarded as obsolete, and morality had shrunk to be no more than a matter of opinion. It was held that there was no such thing as sin if one did not think it to be so, and that to lie a Christian was the mark of a sec-ond-rate Intellect. Art, literature, and music felt the break-up of standards and showed it. At present they were in a- muddle, am} it was a dangerous muddle. In politics the policies of both the great national parties reveal inconsistent thinking. It might be true that they were witnessing a race between education and catastrophe. Education should give a great body of national purpose based on instruction and ready if need bo to accept discipline and sacrifice. Blind instruments of enormous destructive force were being prepared in Europe and might be used almost at any moment. The only chance •was that Britain and the peoples of the Empire should be so strong that they could not lightly be provoked, so wise that they would work unceasingly for the. establishment and maintenance of international peace, and so generous that they would seek to share and not to monopolise the good things of the earth.