EDUCATION.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15157, 17 February 1922, Page 4

EDUCATION.

Details of the retrenchment scheme which the Minister of Education proposes to put into operation are not available. It may be limited to a reduction of salaries and, if the basis is reasonable, probably the teachers will not complain. But, the country cannot afford to starve its Education Department. That is possibly the most important branch of State activity and must be provided with the means to ensure a thorough education for the younger generation. Recently a proposal was made in Britain to reduce by some millions the vote for education and the “Observer,” in opposing the suggestion, put the matter plainly. “To starve education is to threaten the sources of wealth and the foundation of internal security. Even if national trade did not require organised knowledge behind it, democracy certainly does. Democracy imples, insists upon, education. Can anyone contend that the British people is adequately educated by comparison with its responsibilities? The last extension of the franchise has just given a vote to almost every adult citizen. What a time to cut oft the supply of knowledge! It is a time to increase, improve, expand by every means the educational opportunities which the ‘State can offer, if its development is to be continuous, prosperous, and secure. A vast majority of the population relies upon the State for its education. In their hands rests the future of all of us. How they will use it depends mainly on the schools, the mould of the nation’s mind. The teachers are the permanent trustees of democracy. Cut down education and we fling away the automatic safeguards which make democracy possible. Power without knowledge is a perilous endowment.”