Patea & Waverley Press WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 14th 1921 MODERN EDUCATION

Patea Mail, Volume XLV, 14 September 1921, Page 2

Patea & Waverley Press WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 14th 1921 MODERN EDUCATION

A. story is told that is well worth, reproducing, of a dinner given to some 150 students tvlio had just received their degrees and were about to go forth into the world to pursue their respective callings. At the conclusion of the meal the students invited partly as a joke, one of the professors, who had never been known to deliver an address to speak. The professor, to the surprise of all, accepted the invitation and began as follows: ‘ Gentlemen, I have never made

a speech in my life, and I don’t intend to begin now. I have something to say, however, and in saying it, I will follow Luther’s threefold rule: “Stand up straightly, speak out boldly, and sit down quickly. ’ ’ ‘We are in one of the famous banqueting halls of the world. Belshazzar’s hall, compared with this was a lodging on the third floor back. No such art existed in those days as we see around us in this room. No such viands graced his board. What there was there was elegant for that day but we live in another age, an age of art, artcraftmanship and luxury. From the four corners of the earth came the things on this table. From the lowest forms of day labour, to the highest forms of art, we' have round us at least a hundred forms of human work. Take this tablecloth to begin with. It is of the most exquisite workmanship. It involves weaving—to go no further back bleaching, smoothing, designing. It is a damask linen, beautiful and most pleasing to the eye. I want to ask you a question: Is there anyone here who knows from personal experience anything about the labour involved? Have any of you ever contributed any labour to the manufacture of table linen? I am serious gentlemen. If any of you have, I would like him to say so. There was absolute silence. I understand then he continued, that the making of such a thing is beyond your ken.” The professor next proceeded to deal with the objects of every day use to be seen in the room, and asked with regard to each whether any of the students present could produce any of them, , and then he proceeded. “I am a representative University man seriously asking myself whether the system we call education, educates. A timekeeper performs a useful function, so ; does a cash register but the function of education is not to turn out timekeepers or cash registers. Education is to prepare and equip for the duties and responsibilities t of life, and not to turn out industrial and commercial bosses and timekeepers. Why should college men think it degrading to handle tools and make flseful and beautiful things? “I want to point out to you,” continued the professor,” that the highest form of culture and refinement known :o mankind was intimately associated with tools and labour.” Speaking to the young men as if he were on a stage introducing a tunv speaker the professor said. “Gentlemen, may I introduce to you, a young Galilean, who is a Master Builder—Jesus of Nazareth?’ It was a weird act. The silence became oppressive. As if addressing an actual person of flesh and blood he continued: ‘Master, may I ask you, as I have asked these young men, whether there is anything in this room you could make with wour hands as other men make them?’ There was a pause, a brief moment or two, then with the slow measured stride of an Oriental he went to the end of the tableland took the cloth in his hand and made bare the corner and carved oak leg of the great table. In that position he looked into the faces of the men and said: “The Master says, Yes, I could make the table—l am a Carpenter!” The moral conveyed in the speech we have quoted is one that could well be noted by all who are interested in Education to-day.