THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 1928. FREE EDUCATION AND SELFRELIANCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20381, 12 April 1928, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 1928. FREE EDUCATION AND SELFRELIANCE.

The British Prime Minister, in one of his manly public addresses, tells how one of his ancestors educated himself and, while living on little more than a couple of pounds a week, helped his son by his instructions to win a scholarship at the university. It is effort of this kind that builds character. It is effort of a kind that many families in New Zealand can claim in the lives of their fathers and grandfathers. Unfortunately, it is the kind of effort that daily is less and less called into play. Public education is an admirable thing, but like all human devices, it has its dangers. While it piles up a credit balance in the bank of efficiency, it may create a debit balance in the older bank of willpower. Determination to rise above the obstacles of penury and obscurity has helped to strengthen the texture of the fabric of British character, more particularly in Scotland, whore the land of brown heath and shaggy wood has frequently reserved her prizes for her sons of resolute independence. Public education—free public education, that is—has undoubtedly been a boon. But it >'s not without its disadvantage. For it ’s indubitable that, in the long course of human evolution, the will to struggle has been largely dependent on the need for struggle. The danger is, then, that in making life easy we may rob it of its strongest biological factor. Without struggle there can be no progress in individual or national character. The problem is bow to combine a maximum of the efficiency that is derived from education with a resoluteness of char-

acter, a persistency of purpose, a buoyancy of initiative, a strength of effort to produce all that is best in the potential self.

This problem is connected with a proposal with which at first it appears to have little connection. The proposal is that loans should be made to deserving students to enable them to comjSete their courses without the continued harassment of financial stress. This proposal is valuable if the “ loan ” aspect is stringently enforced, so that all beneficiaries under such a scheme, when they have begun to be self-supporting, are required to return all the moneys they have received, plus interest. This is necessary to keep alive the spirit of struggle, while it also' imparts a feeling of pride to the bursar. Such a scheme has been in force in the Melbourne University for about four years- Loans from £lO to £IOO are made in any one year to students above average ability, who pay 4 per cent, interest during their course, 5 per cent, thereafter for five years, and after that 6 per cent., with a ten years’ limit for repayment of the whole sum in half-yearly instalments. In that particular university centre, with a number of students about double those of Otago, there is, after four years of operations, over £21,000 on loan. The benefit of the loan fund was enjoyed by 49 students in 1926. There is no reason why this should not be applied in New Zealand. • But it would be advantageous if the principle were applied further. It may be not unfairly argued that every bursar—and, perhaps, too, even every scholarship holder—should be under bond to repay to the community the- money which the community has expended on his education—that, in short, all university bursaries should be loans. This, again, is not a revolutionary proposal, for the students of some training colleges, after receiving positions, pay back so much per week of the moneys received during the training period. This is a question which will have soon to bo faced in the Dominion in some form or other. Obviously, grants for free education cannot go on indefinitely. The taxpayer ' does not possess a patent note-printing machine. Once the loan principle is recognised, a great portion of the burden will be lifted from the State. But, over and above all monetary considerations, there is the biological significance of the effect on national character. It is not beyond thinking that one day the whole community will decide on some form of payment for all schooling. The old type of life with its resistance of luxury and its self-dependence had its limitations, but it produced strong men. They were men who knew that their life-fortunes, and the’r children’s life-fortunes, depended wholly on their energy and foresight. Unconsciously they followed the line of biological philosophy and struggled to do the best for themselves without the effeminating process of always turning to the State for a “ free ” this and a “ free ” that. The students’ loan proposal, therefore, If a definite scheme is put forward in New Zealand, should receive support. It would help ability over the slough of impecuniosity, while it would at the same time conserve the all-essential will to work and to pay back, and would develop selfdependence and pride in self-achieve-ment.