EDUCATION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 17 December 1936, Page 8

EDUCATION

REVIEW BY MR ATMORE ADDRESS AT HAWERA Appended are extracts from a speech given by Mr Harry Atmore M.P., at Hawera on Thursday 10th December after Mrs Atmore had distributed prizes and certificates to scholars of Technical High School.

Mr Atmore said:— “The nations of the world are very properly beginning to show a greater appreciation of the tremendous importance of education and are in some instances, realising that it is the most important activity in which the State can be engaged. “There have been three chief phases in the history of educational method in the last five centuries —the phase of compulsion—the phase of competition, and the phase of natural interest.

“The school of the rod first gave place to ’the school of the class-list, but by the beginning of the nineteenth century m'ariy teachers were beginning to realise what most mother’s know by instinct, that there is in all young people a curiosity, a drive to know, an impulse to learn, that is availabie for educational ends, and has still to be properly exploited for educational ends.

“Nearly all children can be keenly interested in some subject and there are some subjects that appeal to nearly all children. “Directly you cease to insist upon a particular line of achievement in a particular line of attainment, directly your school gets out of the narrow lane and moves across open pasture, it goes forward of its own accord. The class-list and the rod so necessary in the narrow lane cease to be necessary and it has been well said that in the realisation of this fact Saunderson of Oundle was a leader."

Saunderson described by H. G. Weils as the greatest man he had ever known was undoubtedly and incomparably the greatest schoolmaster of the last hundred years and the most interesting and valuable result of his Dulwich teaching was the demonstration of the interestingness of practical work in physical science for boys who remained apathetic under the infliction of the stereotyped classical curriculum.

“He had a fine faith in the possibilities of a school with a new, greatly varied and enlarged curriculum and under his stimulating guidance Oundle developed into one of the first secondary schools of the Empire—so popular did it become that it was necessary to enter boys 5 years ahead.” Saunderson believed that the tragedy of undeveloped talent is being seen more and more to be a gigantic waste of potentiality and an unpardonable cruelty. “Schools should be miniature copies of the world and school life should be directed so that the spirit of it may be the spirit which will tend to alleviate social and industrial conditions.

“The world is in a most chaotic state •—mental unrest is observable everywhere and it is repeatedly asserted that it is a race between education and, catastrophe. “If this is true then it becomes increasingly important that there should be the fullest recognition of education as the most vital activity of the modern state and the necessary money must be cheerfully voted so that our schools may be equipped to meet the varying needs of a changing civilisation.

“The schools of the near future will have as ‘the supreme apostle of education” the picture film for the presentation and distribution of knowledge.

“The Scottish Educational Cinema Society has recently conducted some interesting experiments the results of which have conclusively proved the tremendous assistance to education given through this visual instruction The Scottish Educational Film Committee is composed of teachers with technical knowledge who are actively engaged in classroom film production. Small reels may be borrowed on a three day lease for 9d for a CO foot i reel and 6d for a 30 foot reel for al • : most every conceivable subject. “The classification of films interesting to teacher and scholar and which arc both educational and instructional comprise travel, industries, manners | and customs, popular science comprising useful arts and natural history ’ and a special section for reconstructed ' and modern history. | “A casual survey of the lists contained in a recent publication reveals such subjects as: ‘lron Ore to Pig ! Iron,’ ‘The Panama Canal,’ ‘Glass-Blow--1 ing Technique,’ ‘lrrigation,’ ‘Atmospheric Pressure,’ ‘Home Nursing,’ ‘The Epic of Everest,’ ‘Wood Pulp,’ ‘Furniture Making,’ ‘Time and Motion 1 Analysis,’ ‘Microscopic Animal Life.’ | ‘Wild Flowers,’ ‘Energy from Sun--1 light,’ ‘A Mediterranean Cruise,’ ‘Lapland,’ ‘Under Sea Life,’ Historical Episode in Life of Michael Angelo,’ and hundreds of other films dealing , picturesquely and impressively with 1 every phase of life.” I J Mr Atmore frequently quoted from' ' works by H. G. Wells and the teach-1 ' ing of Saunderson of Oundle, and em- , phasised that true education must be j I based on real life, for which it should j equip the future citizen, but above all j j it must be permeated with Christian ! ethics. The deplorable and chaotic condition [ J of the nations to-day was undoubt- j edly due to rampant materialism in a | world “rich in mechanisms and poor jin purposes.” j Nations were most prodigal in ex--1 penditures on war and alleged defence preparations, but extremely parsimonious in financing education. He emphasised the necessity for equipping each school with a good library and quoted Carlyle’s statement that a library of good books was the best university. Referring to Bernard Shaw’s dictum that education must proceed along the lines of the discovered aptitudes of the child, he said the large classes in our primary schools prevented such discovery and created conditions unfair alike to scholar and teacher. He condemned the reduced expenditure on education by recent Governments and expressed pleasure at the present Minister having £500,000 to spend on putting school buildings in order, instead of the beggarly sum of £125,000 voted for the previous year. We have magnificent human material in the quarter of a million girls and boys in our public and private schools to-day—girls and boys full of wonderful potentialities and God-given talents. Their training imposes a tremendous and a sacred responsibility on the men and women of the Dominion and we must see that their development shall proceed not only along the “lines of the discovered aptitudes of the girls and boys,” but that all physi(cal and mental training shall be given, to fit them for expressing the highest ideal of life, that of service to their fellow citizens.

They must be taught dependence, not on “reeking tube or iron shard” or big ships, but on eternal moral principles as enunciated in the greatest of all sermons—the sermon on the Mount.

Mr Atmore concluded his speech by wishing scholars and staff “The merriest of all Christmasses and the happiest of all New Years.” Mr Atmore was frequently applauded and at the conclusion of his address a vote of thanks was given him for “his admirable speech” on the motion of Mr Murdoch chV.rman of the County Council.