REACTION IN GERMANY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 17 March 1937, Page 10

REACTION IN GERMANY

CLAIMS OF RELIGION It is interesting though painful to watch in Germany the working out of the conflict between the totalitarian State and the claims of religion, culture and education, says the "Spectator.” Week by week, in the Church, the arts, the schools, the universities, the press, something is sacrificed to the demands of the army or the party. Lately Dr. Goebbels abolished art-cri-ticism; now Dr. Rust, the Minister of Education, has abolished the Obcrprima, or sixth form, in the secondary schools. In future boys will leave after the Unter-prima, or fifth form, in order that the Army may have a sufficient supply of recruits; the period of army-service has bf*m raised from one to two years and the Army comes before education. The decree still leaves Germany one of the most high-ly-developed educational systems, in which boys will leave the secondary school at 18 instead of 19: but the system is an inheritance from former Governments, and National-Socialism has decreased the quality as well as the quantity of teaching. The details of Germany’s determined relreat from progress accumulate daily.