LEARNING AND LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20259, 20 May 1929, Page 10

LEARNING AND LIFE.

In his reference to vocational guidance, when addressing the Secondary Schools Association', the Director of Education has advanced a critical, not to say challenging, opinion concerning some current views. He takes a stand between the crassly utilitarian and the purely academic positions, in both of which the relation of learning to life is obscured. "Purposeful study of general cultural subjects under a skilful teacher is of benefit whatever may be the future occupation of the pupil"—this is Mr. Strong's formula, and he applies it to both erroneous extremes. The utilitarian is dangerously prone to measure the value of education by its immediate ministry to expertness in particular vocational activities. Hence he is all for early differentiation of courses along specialised lines, and would make education dominantly technical. The weaknesses of this position are fairly obvious. It is foolish to set a boy or girl to the acquisition of technical knowledge, to the inevitable exclusion of cultural education to a greater or less extent, at an age when vocational aptitudes and preferences are fluid and undetermined. To this psychological criticism must be added one equally damaging taken from the armoury of economics—the ultratechnical view implies an impossibly close adjustment between the demand for work of a specific kind and the supply of workers of the mental type precisely suited to it. On the other hand, the academician is fatally apt to interpret education in terms of sheer enjoyment, without due regard to the pupil's need to have a means of livelihood and his duty to a community dependent for its prosperity on every requisite occupation having capable workers. All clear-eyed definitions of education envisage it as a preparation for life, not merely as a means of getting a livelihood nor merely as a means of selfish and mendicant enjoyment. As a general rule, the broader the educational basis in early life the higher and more serviceable the vocational efficiency afterward attained. To shape the ground plan of the structure on lines ensuring the maximum height consistent with stability js the educational problem. Its solving depends, as Mr. Strong's words suggest, on keeping all education, feven primary education, in close touch with actual life —the "cloistered" school entails much unlearning later—and yet on giving so broadly cultural a preparation that the art of living, which is much more than the earning of a living, can be mastered. To turn out fine human beings, with a capacity for intellectual happiness and good citizenship, is better than to produce soulless artisans or professional workers, however adept. Mr. Strong's plea for "the cultural side" is well worth heeding.