NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21119, 29 February 1932, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE COST OF EDUCATION. The policy to be pursued in public expenditure upon education is being closely scrutinised in Britain. Addressing a conference in Nottingham, Sir Amherst Selby-Bigge, a former permanent secretary to the Board of Education, said it had been rather difficult to get local education authorities to look at the system of finance. Policy and finance were inter-related, and, broadly speaking, policy determined finance. Fervid declarations that they could not spend too much money on education were irritating to the plain man, prejudicial to careful spending, and did not produce very practical results. The problem in hard times was how to secure the highest value for an approximate sum. 'J ho present moment called for furious thinking. What was wanted was a national policy steadily progressing toward an avowed end. The big question was whether this organisation was to be discriminating and generously selective, or an organisation for mass production and mass expansion. This proposal cropped up acutely over the raising of the school age, a proposal which he regarded as altogether premature. If it had passed they would now have been in very great difficulties, as the expenditure would have hampered the development of the more profitable branches of education. He had every sympathy with the principle of giving every child an equal chance, but he would add "every child of equal capacity." In an address to teachers, the President of the Board of Education, Sir Donald Maclean, said true economy was always consistent with efficiency; it was not the reckless cutting down of expenditure, but tho wise direction of the money in hand to the appropriate purpose. UNEMPLOYMENT IN BRITAIN. Another investigation of unemployment among the 12,000,000 insured workers in Great Britain has been made by tho Ministry of Labour, by examining the records of a "sample'' of 120,000. The inquiry was carried as far as the end of 1930; during that year, tho numbers unemployed ranged from 1.500,000 to 2,500,000, but the inquiry has shown that the "standing army" of persons constantly unemployed was only a small fraction of either of these numbers. A large proportion of the "sample"—3s.4 per cent, of the males and 48.4 per cent, of tho females—had not drawn unemployment benefit between November, 1920, and December, 1930. Over the seven years ended 1930 only 2.9 per cent, of the males and 1.2 per cent, of the females in the sample had~ drawn benefit in every year. Among this number over 40 per cent, had drawn benefit for not more than one-third of cacll year, and over 90 per cent, had drawn benefit for not more than two-thirds of tho year. More or less continuous unemployment is confined to a very small section of the insured population which cannot include more than about 100,000 men and 3000 women. This group represents (the report says) the maximum size of the "standing army" of the unemployed. The number of those who have had no unemployment is at least 30 times as large. Between these two extremes there is a group about lg times as numerous as the other two combined, and including about 5,500.000 men and 1,700,000 women, among whom employment and unemployment are intermittent. In this group the degree of unemployment is not uniform. Among at least half the group unemployment is almost negligible, and it becomes serious among only about 10 per cent. In this last class, however, the workers are not unemployed all the time. THE ARTIST'S RACEHORSE. The conventional representation of a galloping, horse in drawings and paintings has been justified by photographic evidence. The Times recently published a photograph of the picture by Gericault of tho 1821 Derby, which wag included in the exhibition of French art at the Royal Academy, and alongside it a photograph of horses racing over ine same course in 1930. The racing correspondent remarked that the artist's picture certainly gives tho impression of speed. Not one of the four horses in the picture lias one foot on the ground,. whereas in the modern photograph, with one exception, each of the horses has at least one foot on the ground. "The exception certainly appears to have all four feet off the ground at the same time. What is perhaps more interesting is the fact that his fore-legs are out in front and his hind legs out behind in exactly the same manner as tho legs of the horses in Gericault's picture. In the picture, however, tho position of the legs is much exaggerated, with the result that the horses' bellies appear to be almost on the ground. It is certain that they could never recover their balance. Until the camera showed how a horse's legs are used when galloping or cantering or even walking, no artist over painted correctly a. horse in action. Every drawing of a horse galloping was exactly tho same a? that of the horses in Gericault's picture, and until I examined tho photograph of the City and Suburban I had always thought that tho position was completely wrong. Horse No. 16 in that photograph shows that the artists were not altogether wrong, but that they had merely exaggerated a possible position, a position which gives a much better impression of speed than tho average photograph of a horse race."-