SOCIAL ASPECTS OF EDUCATION

Southland Times, Issue 25330, 4 April 1944, Page 7

SOCIAL ASPECTS OF EDUCATION

‘Guidance Found In Scriptures “One of education’s first obligations is, I suggest, to support and strengthen, by both teaching and practice, the democratic form of society, and to inculcate in all people a compelling belief in the dignity and value of man as an instrument in divine purpose; to accept the evolutionary principle in the emergence of new needs and adaptations; and to acknowledge the function of reason and intelligence in determining these adaptations in the interests of society.” This statement was made by Mr E. Partridge, principal of the Dunedin Training College, during a lecture on education, with special reference to its social aspects, in the Civic Theatre last night. The lecture was given as ■part of the programme of the teachers’ refresher course, which is being held in the city. Mr R. Galbraith was chairman. Mr Partridge said that he proposed to give an address on the philosophic rather than on the practical or technical side of education. There was, in his view, a definite need for a periodic revision of their philosophy of education, a critical review of their educational values, and a professional reorientation to the changing conditions and needs of their times. “We have now almost completed the first hundred years of universal education,” Mr Partridge said. “It can be claimed that literacy, the vehicle of understanding and education’s first great objective, has been, achieved by almost 100 per cent, of the people. This is no mean achievement. But have we achieved social literacy? Is it not proof of social illiteracy that for the second time in 25 years the world is at war; and that from end to end of the earth decent people must again stand appalled at man’s inhumanity to man? CHALLENGE TO SOCIETY “Such a condition of affairs is a personal challenge to every member of human society. In particular, every educator, every economist, every statesman, every sociologist and every clergyman must acknowledge an intellectual responsibility and a moral obligation to help society to meet that challenge.” Someone had said that the greatest tragedy in the world was the murder of a beautiful theory by an. ugly fact, Mr Partridge said. The beautiful theory that he must murder at the. outset was that it was possible to devise an education practice that alone would create the ideal member of humane and sensible society. The ugly fact was that the thousand and one other influences that arose in every community were all of them educational influences and that the'school activities, no matter how sincere, or intelligent or well directed, were but a part of the larger educational forces in society itself. .One had only to think of such forces as the radio and the cinema, not to mention the subtler and less deliberate impact of .other community influences, in order to realize how complex was the pattern of pressures at work on the child. It was of,some historical interest to note to what extent the form and nature of society had always tended to determine the philosophy and pattern of its education services. The medieval concept of society and the correlative concept of the relation of man to society was of a kind that might be called ultimate or authoritarian arid found expression in a feudal type of society. Such a type of society embraced an authoritarian form of education in which the scholar tended to live apart from the realities and complexities of life, and found intellectual sanction for sb doing. Teaching was a process that was fixed, abstract and authoritarian. Education was speculative rather than practical and sought ultimate ideas and fixed universal laws. In short it reflected the stable, static condition of society. EDUCATION AND PROPAGANDA “The extent to which the nature and structure of society tends to determine the type and quality of education is seen in comparisons between different countries today,” Mr Partridge said. “In certain countries, of which Germany is a typical example, education is'used to perpetuate unchanged the form of society in which it functions. In such extreme cases education loses the true spirit of education and becomes propaganda. Its methods become regimentation. Its result is indoctrination.

* “In a social sense the public schools of England are probably the oldest examples of this type of education anc( in a political sense the Nazi .political leadership schools of Hitler’s Germany are certainly the latest. These latter are obviously political and deliberately the instrument of an established, regime, but in both cases the true spirit of educational progress, is lacking. By way of contrast, the democratic philosophy and form of society that characterize such countries as Norway, the United States and New Zealand tend to be reflected in their democratic patterns of education in which a conscious effort is made to secure equality of educational opportunity for all of the children of all of the people.” . The education problem was obviously not just a question of curriculum, a question of more science or less science, more technical teaching or more cultural teaching, education for work or education for leisure, said Mr Partridge. Incidentally it might well involve both curriculum and methods, but fundamentally our educational adaptation must be concerned with less tangible but more basic factors, with educational and social philosophy rather than with definite prescriptions, with changes of emphasis rather than with changes of subjects, with emotional and spiritual factors rather than with intellectual ones, with attitudes as well as with attainments. ANSWER IN SCRIPTURES ■ “In a field of such imponderables it is .scarcely possible to write a prescription—we are dealing here with basic social values; not just with subject disciplines and knowledge, but with an integral moral quality that must permeate and pervade all education and all living, the schools and the community,” Mr Partridge said. “And where shall we look for guidance in this vital matter of moral standards and basic social and personal values? I suggest as the answer—‘in the Scriptures.’ However blunted for the moment our appreciation of social or economic or national rights and wrongs, however distorted society’s present values, there still remains in the human heart, deep-seated even though unexpressed, an implicit acceptance of fundamental moral values, an enduring belief in justice, goodness and truth. Every plainest John Citizen among us acknowledges that a clean tongue is better than a dirty one, a kind heart better than a cruel one, and that right should prevail over wrong.” Mr Partridge was accorded a hearty vote of thanks which was carried with acclamation. During the evening items were given by Mrs E. K. Mills, Misses D. Swift and N. Prichard, the Rev. I. Sanson and Mr A. Walmsley. Mr G. E. Wilkinson was the accompanist.