TRUE EDUCATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 3782, 7 September 1926, Page 36

TRUE EDUCATION.

THE CLASSICS AND SPORT. AUCKLAND, August 31. Canon Archdall, the new head master at King’s College, arrived from Sydney today to take up his new dutiee. In the course of an interview he expressed a strong belief in the value of the classics. “I believe,” he said, “the finest implement for educating the mind is still the old classical training, leading up to a truly historical outlook and a scientific viewpoint. In these young countries like New Zealand and Australia, the importance of history is enormous. The only way to go forward hopefully is to go back continually to the lessons of the past. History can be made a great means of training tor world citizenship, and no democracy can hope to survive if its citizens do not understand deeply history and the reason for the institutions of the Church and the State, and society, which have actually moulded the past and are likely to mould the future, when all of us have passed away.” The new head master was a keen athlete at college, and he holds strong views on the importance of this side of school life. “I am very keen on the question of physical fitness,” he said. “If a boy is physically fit it helps him to have a healthy outlook on _ life. Physical culture is an excellent thing, and the gymnasium gives the materia! for an excellent basis in more than one branch of sport. You will see some men who afe expert in one direction, but still physically much under the average. It is essential that a boy should be given a good aU-round start. I am very keen on sport, with an emphasis on the team spirit.” Turning to another phase of school life, Canon Archdall said his aim was to make a school community and a co-operative community of boys, masters, old boys, and parents with, at the back of it all, a growing interest in and an evaluation of education on the part of the whole community. It was essential that a school should have a strong body of public opinion of the right type behind it.