IMPERIAL EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13393, 23 January 1907, Page 10

IMPERIAL EDUCATION.

INTER EST I A DDR ESS.

[FROM Ol'l! OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

London. December 15. At the Caxton Hal!. Westminster, on Wednesday evening the opening meeting of the Liberal Colonial Club was held. The Earl of Durham presided, and among those present were Lord Brassey, the Hon. W. Pemher Reeves, and Mrs. Humphrey Ward. The meeting was held for the purpose of hearing an address by Professor M. L. Sadler, LL.D., on "Education in the Lmpire: Some Suggestions for the Colonial Conference." ... Professor Sadler »aid that until within tlio last three or four years very little had been done to give effective use to educational means to deepen the sense of Imperial citizenship—its privileges, economic opportunities and obligations. There had been, however, a remarkable change. Much was due to Lord Meath for bringing about the observance of Empire Day. Then the organisation of the Rhodes scholarships had struck the imagination perhaps more than anything educational for a hundred years. Men's minds were converging upon a definite end, in good spirit, with no bumptiousness, that educational means should be used to deepen the sense of responsibility for Empire. Empire was temporarily an unpopular subject. His first, proposal was that there should be available for all towns a series of really first rate courses of lectures. He would like a rate photographer who had had experience of teaching, with some really clever painter, who would go to certain selected parts of the Empire and produce for the first time a number of series of slides to convey the impression in colour as well as in form the real life of the people, winter and summer, in town and country. It- was literally a matter of urgency in the next ten years. And his first suggestion was that the colonial Premiers should consider and investigate whether it be possible to set apart out of some budgets contributed to by each a sum of two or three thousand pounds in order to get these slides made. And would it not be possible for a large number of British school teachers to have the opportunity of spending a whole year as teachers in some part of the Empire, and their places here be taken by a similar number of qualified teachers from the colonies? He would be glad if in the next ten years they could have a thousand teachers who had been in the colonies, while Britain would have welcomed an equal number of teachers from the colonies. Surely difficulties as to loss of continuity of service and pensions could be got over. He suggested that, the Conference should take into account the possibility of negotiating for an interchange of teachers of similar qualifications on the lines he had indicated and for recognition of services given. He would like to extend this to a. l>ody of inspectors. Then he thought that there should be established with (ire at Britain as a centre an Imperial bureau of education. This bureau should be an Imperial office, and the higher staff should represent the different parts of the Empire, New Zealand having a representative with others. And let each colony pay its own man. A liberal expenditure would be £8000 a year, and that sum would be saved many times over. The Hon. W. Pomher Reeves did not hesitate to say that Professor Sadler's was very much the I>est address he had ever heard on the subject. Nor had he ever read a paper which contained anything like the practical information and judgment. As to the suggestion for an educational bureau, only a few months ago he (Mr. Reeves) had ventured to suggest that Imperial education ought certainly to have a. place among the topics to he dealt with by an Imperial Council of the Empire, to consist of representatives of the British (Jovernment and the colonial Premier.-, this council to have an advisory committee of experts in permanent, existence. Now he believed was the time i'or pressing that forward. With the Colonial Conference coming next April there could not lie a more hopeful moment. As to Imperial education now being tarried on, he had been struck by Professor Sadler's optimistic tone. He thought more was being done in the colonies than in the Mother Country. After eleven years of fairly careful observation in Great Britain he had been forced to the conclusion that 95 per cent, of the people in England desired nothing so little as to learn anything of the British colonies. They were interested in a friendly way and were willing to learn something of the colonies—if it did not, take too much trouble. The only fault he had to find with the work of the \ ictoria League was that it was on a comparatively small scale. He went on to refer to the use made of the New Zealand slides to be obtained at tile London office of the New Zealand (Jovornment. Every year the demand for them became keener. After referring to the work being done by the Universities, Mr. Reeves went on to say that he had a. hand in sending out to New Zealand something like 30 professors and teachers. holding leading positions in education. The interchange of teachers would be the beginning of a most blessed and estimable work, though there would be a good deal of departmental hesitation to overcome. And the beginning would have to be made not bv the colonial Premiers but by the Mother Country. (Applause.)