WORLD SITUATION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22936, 14 January 1938, Page 14

WORLD SITUATION

DEMOCRACY'S DANGER ' fTHE TOTALITARIAN STATE ' SALVATION BY EDUCATION RESPONSIBILITY ON PEOPLE [BY TELEGRAPH —OWN CORRESPONDENT] DUNEDIN. Thursday "In the world situation to-day the totalitarian State, under either Communism or Fascism, is the outstanding phenomenon," said tho chancellor, the Hon. .T. A. Hanan, M.L.C., in addressing the Senate of tho University of New Zealand at its opening at Otago University to-day. "The world, which a few j'ears ago was vo have been 'made safe for democracy' and which paid a frightful price to achieve that end, is now anything but safe for democracy, which is beset with a complication of problems, economic, social, political. "The totalitarian State arrives overnight, and, despite the incredible suppression of individual freedom and rights, its ruthless punitive action 'choking tho voice of man and prisoning his soul in the namo of progress,' its cult spreads like an infection among groups in' countries still holding to their dearlv-won democratic institutions. Holding Line ol Liberty " Democracy will prosper or perish according to what is imparted to it in tho nature of knowledge and intelligence, as well as according to the character of tho whole of tho people. Its salvation to a largo extent depends upon an education which will guarantee a higher general standard of life and character, a higher goneral level of civio spirit. "*■ "It is on the people as a whole that the responsibility finally rests to provide an adequate system of education designed to attain that object, hold the line of their liberty, and fortify their democratic system against perils to come.'' Mr. Hanan said that a graduate, in ,Virtue of the principles acquired at the •university, should be a vigilant guardian of intellectual integrity and liberty against the encroachment of such subversive movements as have made whole populations of Europe dumbly acquiescent in the ruthless abrogation of luiman rights. He found promise of betterment in the fact that the Now Zealand Council for Educational Research, founded two years ago and subsidised by the Carnegie Trust, had broadly approached the problem of what could be done with our somewhat anomalous university organisation. Adult Education

Dr. Beaglehole's able survey of the history of the University of New Zealand indicated a true basis on which future planning should proceed. Tho council would doubtless go on from the administrative to tho professional aspect of the university affairs, and bo ■would probably be canvassing some of the principles which the Education Fellowship had been persuasively advocating. The increased leisure, the 40-hour week, the radio, the wide distribution of the daily paper, the easy means of assembling-at school or hall in rural localities —all these were opportunities for continuing the pursuit of education, continued Mr. Hanan. The W.E.A., Rotary, women's divisions, and other vdluntary organisations, musical, dramatic, literary, debating, and other (enlightening forces had already led the •way in extending tho scope of information and education and carrying it to higher levels of intelligence and social x yalue. Could- not systematic adult edueation be the rule and not the exception ?