EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY

Southland Times, Issue 24422, 30 April 1941, Page 4

EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY

UNDERSTANDING AND FAITH COUNTER FOR NAZISM “I think you teachers are doing an extremely important job. It is a creative job, and if it cannot help in winning the present war it can and will help in winning the peace later,” said Dr C. E. Beeby, Director of Education, in the course of an address to a meeting of teachers in the United Friendly Societies’ Hall last night. Dr W. J. Boraman presided over a large attendance. Dr Beeby, who is making his first official visit to Southland, was introduced to the gathering by Mr H. D. Prichard, senior inspector of schools for Southland.

Dr Beeby’s address was largely devoted to the question of the sort of education that should be given to the future citizens of a democracy. He said that in Germany education was wholly bound up with the doctrines of Nazism, and to prove this he quoted a number of statements on the subject of education made by German leaders. One of these was to the effect that the whole purpose of education was to create Nazis.

“The question is,” Dr Beeby continued, “what are we going to do about it? These quotations from German i leaders show the kind of educational | system we are up against. I feel oppressed at times with a terrible sense that the war has made education more important than ever it was before. Not that I think we have made a bad job of our education, but there is much more to be done. What kind of educational system are we going to put up against that offered by the Nazis? We could do something of the same sort of thing as they have done and train up our children in a sort of crazy pride of race, and we might do it even better than the Germans have done. Or we might go to the other extreme and say that education is merely the imparting of knowledge and has nothing at all to do with citizenship. Actually what we have to do is to get into our schools something extremely practical in the way of education for democracy.”

SOME ESSENTIALS Dr Beeby said that one of the first essentials was for teachers to believe that the democratic way of life was the I best way of life, and they must seek to imbue the children with a sense that this way of life was the only way worth while, and that it was the only hope of human progress. Children must be led not only to believe in democracy, but also to understand it, and an understanding of the democratic system was difficult The foundation of an education for democracy was the three R’s, Dr Beeby added, because democracy could not survive unless people could read and write. Attention had also to be paid to physical education, not with the idea of making good soldiers, but of making good citizens, who would be good soldiers should the need arise. Cultural subjects such as literature, music and art were important and so were handicrafts, because ability to do something with one’s hands was extremely satisfying. The biological sciences and history and geography were also valuable for an understanding of the democratic way of life. “The object of the school,” Dr Beeby declared, “should be to give to the i child a simplified pattern of the sort of situations he will meet with in after life. He should be made to feel that the democratic way of life is worth living for, worth, fighting for and, if I necessary, worth dying for. There is a ! certain amount of cynicism abroad about democracy, and I don’t think life can be built on cynicism. It must be built on faith, not blind faith in a leader, but faith in certain funda-' mentals. Nazism creates rigidity and crazy pride. Democracy tends towards sloppiness and cynicism. Our object should be to find a way between the two.”