SATURDAY, AVGUST 27, 1932. CENTRALISATION AND FREEDOM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21734, 27 August 1932, Page 10

SATURDAY, AVGUST 27, 1932. CENTRALISATION AND FREEDOM.

The decision of the Ministry to close two of the Training Colleges in this country raises a question of fundamental importance,—the power of the State. What is the State? Is it a super-organism divinely set over the society it functions! in and so claiming over the individuals in that society absolute control even to conscience and life itself? Or is it a creation of that society, an institution set up by it and responsible to it? There is no doubt this second "view is the British view. An Englishman’s house

• • ’< . . . I is his castle. Even so, insisting on his own autonomy in his own private | sphere, he will claim that the State does not own him, but that rather he owns the State. He will assert that the State is merely society acting in its organised official capacity and en- j trusted with the maintenance of .order and the making of laws as society shall direct. In fact, the Briton will often damn the State in good round terms, while at the same time he will realise that it is necessary as a permanent institution to give effect to his wishes. The institution, however, may become—often does become—more powerful than those who set it up. As democracy can express itself only through its greatest institution, it so falls out that this institution begins to claim powers that were never definitely entrusted to it. By degrees the citizens grow accustomed to this and docilely accept decisions of the State as made by responsible Ministers after consultation with-permanent heads of departments. In England education has always resisted State domination. In the old schools of England the headmaster was and is a monarch. The great Busby of Westminster —who as Addison’s readers will remember whipped the grandfather of Sir Roger de Coverley—is one of a long line of notable men. In this line are Arnold of Rugby, Thring of Uppingham, and the late Sanderson of Oundle,—men who ruled as monarchs, who enriched their pupils’ lives with their own untrammelled personality and so sent out to the four corners of the earth alumni who could govern and direct without awaiting State regulations. Undoubtedly the tendency in all great public undertakings such as railways, post office, arid, education is that they should pass under governmental control. But an educational system is different from a postal or railway system. The essential in education is a free interaction between two spiritual organisms—to wit, teacher and taught. New Zealand, like England, has long believed in local control and local autonomy. Otago at all events does not want to sec its secondary schools —not to mention its primary—controlled by headmasters whose appointment is made solely by a central department and solely on the usual departmental grounds. Such a system will produce mere docile officialdom—a blend of efficient mechanism or mechanical efficiency as seen from above with a dehumanised and monotonous efficiency as seen from below. That is, the authorities above the system, closely surveyed by politicians, will control education in such a way that those below, both teachers and pupils,'N will feel their spiritual autonomy is departed. That this is no chimera conjured up out of the parochial mind of Otago may be seen from a recent statement by the Director of Education in writes Mr M, P. Hansen, “ in the light of events during the last few years to advise the public of certain dangers to which a highly centralised system of education Sunder political control is exposed. These dangers have 1 become evident only in‘recent years.” The dangers .which he points, out are not quite the same as those in this country, yet they result from the centralised control towards which we are heading. If Otago can lose One locally originated institution it can lose another. The logical outcome will be that in this country local patriotism will expire and our democracy will be only a kind of servile submission to our State, coupled with a certain , wirepulling system to make the State puppets dance the correct steps to the tune. To part with local control in a non-human affair like mails is a sign of strength; to part with it in a human relationship like education is a sign of weakness. . The result will not manifest itself at once;—moral results never do. Blit it will manifest itself. There is an easy transition from interference with a public institution to interference with private enterprise. If democracy falls asleep and allows private liberty to be institutionalised and departmentalised, then the step to Socialism will not be a big one. Of course if that is the desired end, t then local institutions must be surrendered one by one. And when State Socialism arrives, the decent British public in New Zealand will expire from sheer inertia and moriotony.