POLITICS AND EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17330, 29 November 1919, Page 1 (Supplement)

POLITICS AND EDUCATION.

WANTED— A DEFINITION.

BT KATANGA.

Amid the babel that, echoes from the candidates' platform as the suffrages of the electors' are being vociferously sought, one word may be caught with frequencyeducation. As a. plea for votes, it is as good a word as any other; and just now it is better than most others. I>id a dying Parliament, in an effort to merit resurrection, give this word prominence out of■ a realisation that its utterance would placate those in whose keeping are the keys of politicians' tombs? That were perhaps too impertinent an inquiry. But the hustings orations leave no room at all for doubt that an expressed anxiety about education is considered popular. Increased expenditures, on salaries and buildings, and administration, is widelv advocated and applauded. Greater facilities for all classes of the community are loudly urged. Even such details as the employment of the country's own printing office in the production of school books are receiving attention. * Pt, in all this emphasis en education, one notable lack impresses itself; it is the lack of any clearly uttered idea of what education itself really should be. It is not possible to doubt the sincerity of some 0 f the advocates of more and better education; they are, it seems, at least equally affected by the growing desi.e for it as are those whose votes they solicit. But they would perform a public service, and incidentally give their hearers a better chance of appreciating their claims to become the people's represents. Uvea in Parliament, if they would take a little time to expound their views on education itself. For, unless clear ideas obtain on that, we shall be apt to go on making a mess of things despite our anxiety to do well.

A Rare Opportunity. Wo have a groat opportunity to make amends for a slipshod past. A mood of self-criticism—not altogether pleasant, but salutary— seized our nation. It is a gift of the war. Our self-complacency has been a little shaken, and, beneath our uttered satisfaction at a military triumph that proves us not wholly degenerate, is a disquiet that, makes occasionally naive confession. We -have hid a narrow escape from disaster ; our efficiency sagged a little under the strain of the great struggle; and if Greater Britain is to be secure and service-giving in the new era that is upon us we know in our heart of hearts that some things must be better done. It is too much to expect that we ourselves . may be much better men and women than w 8 have been. We grey, headed sinners are set in the limits of our ways. But our children are our nation's hope. Plastic, they mav be given the new shape that is so desirable. They may be bent without being broken. 1 rained aright, they may be used for the needs of the new age. So runs our thought— little too pessimistic, perhaps, about our own capabilities in education, but sanely optimistic about our children's chances. For that new age to which they pass, will the old education suffice them? It has given us something short of the best equipment; it can hardly be expected to do the best for them. The Error of Rigidity. For one thing it has been too bookish. £iot that the text-book can be discarded hut that it should exercise less domination! We have made mere knowledge of a printed page the task %nd test of learning, regardless of the changes in a developing mentality that make learning by rote inapplicable, save at a brief "stage of the mind s development. Our methods have been insufficiently humanising and mind-arousing. We have crowded the curriculum with an ever-in-creasing congestion of subjects, in a foolishly feverish anxiety that our children should complete their education— if education could ever be complete .'—until we have made our children brain-tired and eye-weary and taken all the edge off their native appetite for knowledge. We have allowed the economy of standardisation to blind u s to individual potentialities in our children. The method of interchangeable parts, advantageous enough hi our foundries, has been admitted to our schools, where -it is an affront to human nature. Our passion for ' system" has brooked no limits, and education "has become mechanical, resembling, indeed, nothing so much as those wonderful achievements of machinemaking skill that take porker., in at one end and turn sausages out at the othersausages of miraculously uniform shape and flavour.

Frederic Harrison's warning has gone largely unheeded: "Few things suffer more than education by passing into stereotyped schemes set forth in the formula* of the day, and expounded by professional experts." A uniform system of education is a form of madness akin to a project of making men of one size or one weight." Professor Paulsen has declared the truth : " The ideal of a true national education would not be an equal education to all, but rather a maximum of individual development corresponding to the infinite variety of tasks, of powers, and of gifts produced by the creative forces of nature, . . ."' an an ideal national education eysfem would be an organisation giving every single individual a chance to attain to a maximum of perlfc.nal culture and social efficiency, according to his natural gifts and the strength ol his will. /■Esthetic and Ethical Needs. Have we not also been guilty of sad neglect of some element* in the human nature of our pupils? Has education not ■been 100 exclusively intellectual? What jof [esthetics? Have our children— have Iwe any really cultured sense of the beautiful, save in marked exceptions? ; lake the average appreciation of a work |->f art -a painting, a piece of sculpture, ..i poem, an oratorio. L u discriminating? ! l.« it intelligent? • L it .soulful' i There is a universal capacity for beauty, 1 but it needs culture to make it efficient! I '••> it (fhcieiit, as a general rule? Are I not the bizarre effect* of on,, cinema photo. ! p.ay more attractive to the public than all I the genius of our art galleries.' What 'say the picture-; of en,- artisan.-;' homes? i l>o tho "in monioriairi" verb's chosen to j adorn death notice.-, evidence miv true appreciation of poes/? I>., we all know good music when we hear it? The Grandgrinds and Mi.Clioaknmchilds are not ail dead uc still dote on facts, and depreciate fantasy. Cntil we mend our ways our so-called educated child will see a primrose in. better than did worth's Peter Bell, and find in the Min-ct nothing but the sun's light and earth's (I i«t.

As lor other thing-, the culture of even the cruder emotion.- to say nothing of these aesthetic feelings—has ha,l little lh night, and ethical training has Keen an afterthought "twopence a week extra I' .i manner* ''

I'hc.-e criticisms, which are finding '•'i' '' '-• ■ day in niiinv cimj!trii->-, indicate that educational ide.il., need restatement ami ih-.v .■i i ,|,lv ati< iis. Tliev should bo in.- Milting ••()-« (if a practical attempt at better work. What say aspirants to si ate. raft's eminence about* those, things? ■}" honest an.l !.•<-■, I ute attempt to f-.iiiiutfit.i- their r.un thought*, about them, <■•" the I'difiialii.ii of their audiences, would .-,.,■%•■ „ double gain—th,. enlighten- »>••••* "I th,- general public and the in.-iii!lV>t:iti.,ii of what sort of folk the anil,it!.ms |tol.tii-iaii, themselves are. It is r.ot too late for them to preface their speech about education with a definition home-made for preference.