LORD BADEN POWELL’S VIEWS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 180, 1 August 1931, Page 6

LORD BADEN POWELL’S VIEWS

I ORD BADEN POWELL has been airing his views upon New Zealand education, presumably because of his recent visit to the Dominion. Seeing that Lord Baden Powell spent the greater portion of his time fishing the New Zealand waters, he is more qualified to talk about the trout than the teaching. Lord Baden Powell made no real contact with the youth of the Dominion during his recent grand parade through New Zealand, and he knows no more about what the New Zealand boy wants or does not want than does any illiterate Laplander. Lord Baden Powell has done a worth-while thing in starting the Boy Scout and Girl Guide movement, but this does not give him any standing as an educationalist or a critic of education. Did he possess any qualification for the office of critic of educational systems he would have required to have given greater attention to the problem than he devoted in Neiv Zealand. Having no qualifications it is, of course, only natural that he would require to devote less attention to the problem than would a qualified educationalist: nevertheless, in view of the lack of even those meagre facilities necessary for the unqualified to come t<> sound conclusions, Lord Baden Powell had better confine himself to the fish. Fishing stories are acceptable all the world over.