INTERCHANGES IN THE EMPIRE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19730, 27 December 1926, Page 6

INTERCHANGES IN THE EMPIRE

That the Empire has achieved a measure of success in its efforts to foster co-operation in education is readily capable of proof. This year there are 114 Dominion teachers in Great Britain from Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, 40 of the number .being from Australia. This means, of course, that there are 114 teachers from Britain in the Dominions. NewZealand has had exchanges, both of inspectors and teachers, with England and Canada. This year there is at least one teacher on exchange in New Zealand from Australia. More could be done in this direction. Australia and New Zealand can foster the Empire spirit by increased co-operation in all types of education, agricultural, industrial, and academic. Mr Bruce has implied that even more valuable than an interchange of teachers would be an interchange of journalists. The practicability of such a step has been discussed, but obviously it is less easy to effect exchanges of persons engaged in private employment than of those engaged in public services. There are need and opportunity to knit up the outlying parts of the Empire, not only with the centre in Britain, but also with each other. Each year the Rhodes Scholarships strengthen the bond; but this is a one-sided relationship. The Dominions can do more. Victoria has made a good start by offering six scholarships of £2OO a year, tenable for two years, to British schoolboys. The striking feature in this arrangement is that the scholarships are not offered by the Government, but by the private schools, with the object of bringing about closer relations w-ith the Motherland. Two of these scholarships have already been allocated, one to a pupil of the Trinity County School, Wood Green. London, and the other, confined to Scottish boys, to a pupil of George Heriot’s School, Edinburgh.