THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, JULY 10, 1937 NEW TASKS FOR EDUCATION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22777, 10 July 1937, Page 14

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, JULY 10, 1937 NEW TASKS FOR EDUCATION

How many ordinary citizens of this country has the prospect of the New Education Fellowship Conference really excited? The question is neither cynical nor needless. None more appropriate and sympathetic could be asked. It fits like a glovo the purpose of the conference. Partly this purpose is arousal of attention to important contemporary facts in education. Chief among them is the arising of new ideas about the aims and methods of schools; and not merely of schools, for the whole plan of educativo effort, from the cradle to the grave, is under critical scrutiny with a view to amendment. This mood of criticism is not new, of course; any education worth the name tends to awaken concern about its own processes. But the present age, affected by a widening social outlook and - prompted by a marked increase in social contacts, turns to organised discussion as an established means of promoting improvement in the processes. No longer is it a voice crying in the wilderness, but the gathering of many voices, that is trusted to choose and achieve reforms. The experts put their heads together, not without risk of collision but with hope of unitedly inspiring the activity of communities in their own educational betterment. These experts have warrant for their hope. They need not be daunted by the sad reflection that of the holding of conferences there is no end and much debate is a weariness to the flesh. Their case is not that of the rabble assembled in obedience to a merely emotional impulse and prone to split asunder in a riot of selfish desires. They have, in this age, a common creed of human intercourse, if not of solidarity, and implicitly seek to spread that belief and make it influential everywhere. Hence their anxiety that, attached to their assemblies of technical study, members of the general public shall bo interested. They bring an evangel as well as prize a culture. It will be understood from these considerations that the New Education Fellowship, an organisation seeking to serve every country in the world, is not merely one more link in a lengthening chain of consistent experience; a new departure, in keeping with the altered requirements of this age, is intended. Already, in Auckland, one of the noted visiting lecturers —Dr. Kandel, a professor of education in Columbia University, New York —has made this clear. According to his exposition of the contemporary need and the only feasible plan to meet it, education is in a period of transition, and "no country has yet found itself." Everything is being reshaped—not in the humdrum way natural to customary movements from generation to generation, but in the more heroic fashion demanded by changes wrought in a colossal war and its consequent political and economic upheavals. As heretofore, but at greater speed, science is remaking the world; technological advance is venturesome everywhere. Human wants increase amazingly, yet they are being overtaken. Added i to this acceleration of a tendency as j old as history is an unexampled i mingling of national and racial units j in a composite whole, which will become a hopeless, dangerous confusion unless education make it sane and orderly and serviceable. In such a situation there must bo more and better education, so that dictatorship shall not blunt intellect and sensibility, and that democracy may not continue to fall over its own feet through lack of moral self-discipline.

To understand the circumstances and requirements of foreign countries is obviously essential if the immediate and future tasks of such education are to be adequately performed. Therefore " fraternity in education " has been accepted, by the movement represented in the conference, as a fundamental principle; and the conferences, like the rest of the organisation, have had a varied venue. New Zealand is fortunate in being selected for the visit, this year, of some of the world's leading authorities in education. They will be heard with deep interest and respect. However, it does not follow that everything they expound is to be deemed applicable in this country, nor, indeed, that anything will be put forward by them in a dogmatic mood. The visitors themselves, it may be assumed, know too much of the complexities of education problems to be guilty of pontifical utterance about them. Speaking for them at the ceremony of official welcome yesterday, Rektor Zilliacus of Hclsingfors went so far as to describe the visitors' attitude as " humble," and this had reference to the obvious failure of education in many older and larger countries to do all that was expected of it there. His speech, excellent in all respects, convincingly revealed the movement as a quest for knowledge rather than a campaign of conquest. Dr. Kandel, to quote him again, has chasteningly said, " No system of education from another country can help you out of your difficulties," and has deprecated the expectation that the conference will do for New Zealand what New Zealand ought to do for itself. Certainly it has its own particular, local and temporary perplexities in this period of transition. Nevertheless, remembering that education makes practical progress by applying sound theory and that the expert alone can be trusted to propound such theory, New Zealand should give full heed to all that these distinguished exponents say,,