EDUCATION NEEDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23221, 15 December 1938, Page 17

EDUCATION NEEDS

SYSTEM'S DEFECTS DEMANDS OF INDUSTRY CONSTANT STUDY DESIRABLE ADDRESS BY DR. E. MARSDEN [by telegraph—OWN correspondent] ROTORUA, Wednesday "Unfortunately, good as is the education you are receiving, the advances in industrial methods are such that education as we know it is not keeping pace with them, and to succeed you need to do a lot more than rest on your high school education," stated Dr. E. Marsden, Secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, during an address to-day at tho prize distribution of llotorua High School. For success in life, said Mr, Marsden, it was not enough to learn to do one's tasks and to do them promptly and without argument, but to study and learn why the tasks had to be done and their significance. It was necessary not to be put off with any plausible explanation, but to get to the truo and scientific reason and all its implications to other jobs. Hard Work and Study The rate of change in industry tor day, he continued, meant that if young people did not take advantage of a good general and scientific education and make a habit of continuous study they would find themselves in a backwash, and good jobs would be lost to them. Every avenue of employment was requiring a better and better background of good scientific education. It meant developing habits of observation and straight thinking, judgment and initiative, and these could not be obtained deliberately, but only from hard work and study, cheerfulness and reasonable ambition.

Taking farming as an instance, Dr. Marsden said there was no use in agricultural research officers making researches and experiments and giving instructions if the general background of basal education of the farming community was not advanced at tho same time. The one great difficulty in increasing production of quality goods was the shortage of really educated foremen and managers —both men and women —who had sufficient knowledge, observational powers and initiative to use or develop modern methods. Needs ol Employment "It is unfortunately true," Dr. Marsden said, "that your education, without further personal and continuous effort on your own part, is not sufficient to keep pace with industrial developments in progressive countries in the rest of the world. I am not satisfied myself with the extent and up-to-dateness of the scientific education in the country, and will do what I can to urge an improvement. Education must not have occupation as its sole objective, but it is obviously desirable that the education we give should have a close relationship to the opportunities for employment or for the needs of employment." New Zealand, he said, had natural advantages and resources sufficient for the purpose of the Government in its desire that there should be more production of both primary and manufactured goods, so there would be more to share round and a higher material standard of living for everybody. None of its resources could be utilised properly, however, unless the country developed the men and women to do the job.