The New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, JUNK 18, 1915. THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15947, 18 June 1915, Page 6

The New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, JUNK 18, 1915. THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO.

Among the many reasons why History should be taught in all our schools and why it should bo a leading subject in all national examinations—whether university, secondary, primary, professional, or Civil service—is that without a knowledge of History we cannot possibly appreciate and understand the place which our Empire and our country have in the world, or the consistency of its progress towards constitutional liberty and order. History, tb be taught effectively, must be taught sympathetically and reverentially, as must every art and science known to the colleges. Indeed, to place any educational authority in the hands of an alien enemy and a hostile ' national is so obviously wrong that we may well wonder at the indifference of the Wellington collegiate authorities to such a fundamental condition of sound education. The Victoria College Council appears so anxious to justify itself that it actually' assumes that we may leave education in any hands not positively dangerous to the state, without any serious regard to the sympathies and affiliations which so potentially affect and influence inculcation and direction. The cause of this indifference to the national well-being is to be found in the amazing toleration and acceptance which have characterised British states, and which have been so grossly taken advantage of by aliens and their friends. We have not even taken the trouble to see that aliens arc excluded from our public services and from seats on our local bodies. We grant naturalisation without receiving any assurance that the so-called " naturalised " subject has taken formal steps to denaturalise himself in his own country- We are affected by a fictitious " universality " of education which has no meaning whatever excepting that German "Kultur" will have none of us, while we must accept anything and everything, directly or indirectly, from that narrow source. .It would not be possible for these evils to be so amazingly developed among us if there were a batter general knowledge of History, if the. public knew less of things which do not matter and more of the things which made them what they arc. ,

This absurd educational system of ours, which is so " universal " that it leaves languages to be taught in a great national school by an alien who has carefully avoided for many years all opportunities to become naturalised, has not even taken the trouble to teach our scholars and students the place of Waterloo in our national evolution and in the political progress of the world. It is probable that the great mass of our primary scholars only know of "Waterloo" as they may know of "Mesopotamia," that most secondary school students have no more than a vague idea that Wellington ! beat. Napoleon, and that the average graduate of our university colleges regards it as strange that a century ago we should have had the help of the Prussians in fighting the French, whereas now we are helping the French to fight the same Prussians. It is obviously hopeless to expect any intelligent public opinion on international affairs as long as such crass ignorance exists, thanks to the folly of our educational system. We might as well expect engineers to build bridges without mathematics, or doctors to treat disease without a knowledge of anatomy. It is this absence pf historical teaching which makes our people accept their possessions as unassailable, their liberties as inherent, and their security as assured. Many actually think that a conquest by Germany would not affect these possessions and these liberties; most do not yet realise that German militarism must be destroyed and German " Kultur" stripped of its borrowed plumage and revealed in its paltry nakedness. It is noticeable that those who are so proud of being broad and international and " universal in their outlook upon education are never enthusiastic for the teaching of History. They prefer to amuse themselves over thf meaningless meaning of some obscure foreign word rather than to warm human hearts and thrill human interest with the meaning of Waterloo. )

Waterloo was the crowning victory of one of that endless, series of struggles by which the states of Europe have repeatedly prevented the establishment of an irresistible tyranny, and have thus enabled democracy to arise and constitutional progress to become possible on the earth. Joan of Arc led a great uprising for the national redemption of France against the Angevin attempt to establish from England a continental empire; Wallace and Bruce were,her unwitting colleagues; the constitutional freedoms of the British are' due as much to Wallace and to Joan of Arc as to Simon de Montfort, Hampden, and Sydney. The Dutch, in their great uprising— uprising of which the " Invincible Armada " was really an incident—asserted the same un- : dying national principle against the might of Spain. A century later the same |j Dutch, ■ under N William of

Orange, saved Europe from the attempt of Louis of France to 1 exercise despotic power over Europe. A century later Napoleon made his desperate bid for the overlordship of Europe and the world—that bid ended at Waterloo. If we review European history we see that the free states have been striving, for a thousand years to progress without losing their national independence and their national liberties, and that tyranny after tyranny has farced its head up and been struck down. Our British recognition of this makes Joan of Arc honoured by the British sons of those she drove from France, makes Wallace a watchword to the sons of those who similarly slew him, places William Tell among our popular heroes, and gives us Trafalgar and Waterloo as great national days. In fighting Germany to-day we tread in the hallowed footsteps of those who chased the Spaniard from tho Channel, and Napoleon from Flanders, as our loyal French allies arc inspired not by their worthless 'Louis or their Corsican tyrant, but by tho Joan who saw visions and sought only the freeing of her France- Waterloo was one of 'the world's great days because there and then Europe was freed and constitutional progress given a renewed lease of life. Again the British fight to free Europe and to save their own democracies, fighting with new allies 7 it is true, but in the same sacred and most ancient cause.