ENVIRONMENT

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12389, 8 March 1926, Page 7

ENVIRONMENT

SECONDARY SCHOOL SUBJECTS PROFESSOR TENNANT ON “CULTURAL VALUE.” A suggestion that certain of the subjects taught in secondary schools for their “cultural value” produced for the student an environment of a hundred years or more ago, an unreal environment in the piesent-day world, was made by Professor J. S. Tennantj speaking on “Adjustment to Environment” in the Concert Chamber, Town Hall. “Can we not in some way provide an environment that is less artificial, that is more suited to the particular age with which we are dealing?” he said. “When we come to deal with secondary schools and the subjects taught there, the question of the cultural value of the various subjects is, of course, a very important one. Now, I would yield to no one in my appreciation of the value of culture and of its importance to the community, its absolute necessity if a community is to progress. But when we come to the question of attributing to certain subjects, as subjects, a cultural value, simply because they are subjects of a particular kind, then I must refuse to aocept that position—refuse absolutely. ,“I quite recognise that certain subjects may, if used properly, have a higher cultural value than but the point I wish 0 make is tho. relation of the school .0 the community in which it is, becauso tne community is the environment of the school. I believe that those things which are going to "be of use to the children, those things which you can convince them are going to be of use will be of the highest and truest cultural value. “Consequently it is not entirely necessary to divorce even the secondary school from, the life and work of the community' in order that the hest cultural effects may be produced. I believe that the school, whether primary or secondary, which best fits in with its teaching wjth the sccial, literary, and even commercial and. industrial interests of the communitv in which it is placed, is doing the best for tfie cultural development of .i + s students. I believe that we cannot get away from the law of environment, and if the environment is made unreal it ceases to be effective and stimulating, and consequently it ceases to be educative.”-