HELPING SOCIAL UNREST.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16463, 16 June 1919, Page 7

HELPING SOCIAL UNREST.

At the opening meeting of the Auckland institute on Monday evening Dr. J. W. MTI wraith, inspector of schools, delivered a lecture on “Education and the Social Unrest.” Professor Segar presided, and there was a good attendance of members and the general publie. The speaker said that he would affirm that part of the social unrest was due to defective education. A big proportion of the population was being attracted to the cities by the emotional life to be had there, it was the cities that provided all the entertainment and transacted business, while the country no longer offered amusement, and, to a great extent, just meant hard toil to its inhabitants. Dr. MTlwraith referred to the necessity for a proper educational system to combat the effect of the growing use of automatic machinery, which tended to replace the brains of the workers, and, instead of leaving them free to think for themselves, dulled their mental powers. Dr. 11 wraith referred to the fact that the University in Auckland was housed in a second-hand building, having passed from old Parliamentary buildings to an abandoned high school. The strangest sight was the Normal School, which was in a disgraceful iftate, the children coing without adequate playing grounds. A basis for education was the physical culture of the child, which present conditions made impossible. The University should be the finest building in the city, the speaker said, and should be the centre of national life.

Referring to the conditions of education in Auckland, Dr. MTlwraith said that there were 72,000 children attending the elementary schools in the province, and there were only two medical officers and a few nurses to attend to their welfare. In 1917 only 41 per cent, of children who left school had passed the sixth standard, and of those who had passed only 50 per cent, went further.