WORKERS’ EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21643, 13 May 1932, Page 9

WORKERS’ EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION

THE W.E.A. IN ENGLAND. The report of Mr R. H. Tawney’s presidential address at the annual conference of the English W.E.A. in March suggests some interesting reflections in regard to proposals for economy in education in this country also. Looking to the future of the W.E.A., Mr Tawney noted that the bacillus which preyed on educational societies was that of respectability and complacency. Educational history was thick with the gesticulating ghosts of movements which_ had begun as crusades and ended as cliques of cultured persons. The W.E.A. must redouble its efforts to draw into its classes the working class students it was founded to serve, and it must be unresting in its efforts' to ensure that the association commanded the confidence and rested on the support of workingclass organisations. The objective of the W.E.A.’s general educational policy must be the establishment of complete educational equality for the whole population. The odious tradition of class discrimination, which poisons the life 'of both English schools and of English society, should be finally stamped out as the relic of barbarism which it is. “ That tradition,” Mr Tawney added, “ was expressed in a manner at once repulsive and comic, in the May Committee’s report, which gave as a reason for checking educational development the fact that ‘the standard of education, both elementary and secondary, that is being given to the child, of poor parents is already in very many cases superior to that which the middle-class parent is providing for his own child.’ It does not seem to have occurred to the authors of that horrifying revelation that the public schools —I mean of course the schools that are really public—are available for all children irrespective of their parents’ incomes; that many_ of those whom they describe as ‘ middle-class parents’ send their children to ouch schools; and that if, for reasons of their own, other parents do not, with the consequence that their children receive, as is alleged, an inferior education, they have no one to blame for that result except themselves.” In New _ Zealand we have been successful so far in avoiding some of the worst abuses of the English educational system, but even here it is obviously necessary to be active in defence against the forces of educational reaction. “We are unable to believe,” said Mr Tawney, “ that the policy which is most likely to conduce to the,, wellbeing of the nation is to neglect the health and etunt the intellectual development of the 10,000,000 odd of its members who happen to be between the ages of five and 17.” Dr Temple, the' Archbishop of York, also delivered an address on the same theme. “What a man does with his leisure,” he said, “ is really the most important thing about him. The situation which is called leisure when you have a little money is called unemployment when you have not. I believe the absence of equality of educational opportunity to be far the greatest and deepest of the injustices of modern life. ,It can only be cured in so far as the whole community comes to believe and takes steps accordingly. I am also convinced that there is nothing which causes anything like so wide a breach in the fellowship of our national and international life as these same inequalities of educational opportunity.” In an editorial comment on the conference, the Manchester Guardian says: “ We cannot wish to destroy variety and experiment in education. But a uniform and generous provision of similar brands of education for all might do more than anything else to redress those economic inequalities under which our society is labouring. Such a provision would enable each man or woman to start from ‘ scratch ’ in the race of life.\ 1 Scratch ’ may be set as high as we can. But if we could guarantee that ‘ scratch ’ in education shall be the same for all, wo should have gone a long way toward securing a society built, not on wealth nor on class, but on service and merit.” W.E.A. LITTLE THEATRE, , As the University has decided to produce “Arms and the Man,” the next W.E.A, play to be performed publicly will probably be “The Importance of Being Earnest,” by Oscar Wilde. TWO WAYS OF ESCAPE. At the last meeting of the Hampden class, Mr Ross said that there were two ways of escape from the present economic crisis, the way of, destruction and the way of control. Broadly speaking, the two lines of approach, thus indicated, represented the main division of opinion between economists in the present times. There were those who believed that society had to plan its economic organisation so ak to avoid periods of prosperity and depression, and those who believed that the present economic organisation demanded industrial fluctuations in order to do its work of carrying on production efficiently. When Sir Arthur Salter said recently that one of the reasons for hoping that the depression was ending was that world trade was coming to a standstill, and when Mr J. M. Keynes saw with satisfaction the undermining of the creditor position of France, they wore not advocating that the only theoretical way out was the way of further suffering, but they recognised that there was little hope of mankind planning a way to prosperity. The one school of thought thus declared that the depression would end when sufficient commodities had been destroyed and production had been discouraged, so that prices would at last begin to rise again because of scarcity. Primary products were being destroyed in many parts of the world, so that at some time the world would find itself in need of commodities, and begin producing again. Although there were many attempts being made to keep up prices by State assistance, the time would come when prices would fall further, production be hindered, standards lowered, until the tide turned. Such a line of action undoubtedly demanded further economies, a restriction of standards, and increased suffering. On the other hand, there was the possibility of attempting to control the economic forces, just as engineers had succeeded in controlling the material forces. Among the planners would be found people as different as Sir Basil Blackett and Major Douglas, Swope and Stalin, J. M. Keynes and Norman Thomas. It did not matter what plan was

selected, none could succeed unless there was a sufficient number of people who could understand the economic problems and form a judgment, and play an intelligent part in executing the solutions. ■ Mankind had escaped from previous depressions without any constructive action, and the reason why so_ many saw hope only in further economies and further destruction of commodities was that mankind as a whole had not shown any of the qualities needed for the scientific control of economic forces. It seemed easier for people to suffer physically than to use their brains. Mr Ross gave a quotation from the evidence submitted to an American Senate investigation into the possibilities of planning. In reply to a statement that the claim that depressions were inevitable was a counsel of despair, the' representative of the Chase National Bank, Mr Albert Wiggin, said: “I think you are looking for a superman, and there is no such thing. Human nature is human nature. Lives go on. So long as business activity goes on we are bound to have conditions of crisis once in so often. We may learn from each other how to avoid the particular difficulty the next time, but you are always going to have once in so many years difficulties in business, times that are prosperous, and times that , are not prosperous. There is no commission or any brain in the world that can prevent it.” “You think then,” the chairman of the commission further asked, “ that the capacity for human • suffering is unlimited ? I think so.” It would he unfair to suggest that Mr ; Wiggin and those who accept his point of view are unsympathetic and dull to human suffering. They are aware, of the ? tremendous difficulties of economic planning, and fedl that the human material is incapable of doing the job. In this they may be wrong, but the "only evidence to the contrary would be a host of study circles. Just as it was a common thing to blame others for the depression, so there was a tendency to demand that others find a way out for" the people. Fundamentally the blame for the present position, rested with the large majority of people in the past who bad not taken the slightest interest in social problems beyond registering a vote at election times. Fundamentally, the avoidance of suffering would coipe only when large numbers of people were studying in a systematic and a calm way the problems of society. Just as financiers or politicians or business men or Jews, or trade unionists, or the hundred or so groups of people who. had been blamed for the depression, could be held responsible only because the masses were apathetic, so the statesmen, economists, and; organisers who were asked to find a solution, were dependent on the intelligent understanding of the people. Nothing was more foolish than for the average individual to blame someone else for his plight when he or she was too lazy or ! tired or- apathetic to bother to think or study. Out of the whirlwind of ideas and controversy of the present day might come an attempt to control social forces, but only if the discussions were taken up intelligently by an increasing number of people. In the future as in the past; the real enemy of economic planning .was the person whose main interests were in reading poetry, going to the pictures,,, digging a garden, playing bridge, or walking up and down the main street on Friday nights. . . ~: