FAITH IN EDUCATION

Waikato Times, Volume 88, Issue 13659, 13 December 1917, Page 3

FAITH IN EDUCATION

THE VOCATIONAL TREND. PREPARATION FOR A LIVING ONLY. NOT THE TRUE AIM.

Under the heading "Education and the War," Mr Eben Wilson, M.A., Principal of the Hamilton High School, in his annual report, said:— "Judging by the number of boys and girls who arc still sent straight into business without any further education whatsoever, one is forced to take the view that many parents still have no faith in education, regarding it as a luxury and not a necessity. The truth is that elementary instruction is to a large extent wasted if there is subsequent neglect, that knowledge, no less than character, is one of the fundamentals of success in every sphere of human activity, and notwithstanding the difficulties -of carrying on in these strenuous times, I would again impress upon parents the urgency, of giving their children the manifold: advantages that a higher education ensures. We have learned many lessons from the war. and not the least that ' the day is unto them that know, that the untrained man or woman relying on the accident of birth or character runs an unequal race against those whose native gifts have been intensified by training at the hands of experts.' The great struggle in Europe is a contest between the forces of democracy and autocracy. Democracy must be founded on a cultivated and widespread intelligence. In the chaos reigning in Russia to-day we see a great people wandering in the darkness seeking the light, a new-born democracy attempting to undertake responsibility before education has fitted it to do so. "There has during the past year been much discussion* in educational circles and in the English Press of the relation between business and com merce and the .secondary schools—a discussion not without interest to us in New "Zealand. ' There are',' says Max Ford Hueffer. in discussing the defects of the German University system, ' two great educational theories in the world—one which I will roughly call the German theory, being to the effect that the end and aim of education is to produce men fitted for given professions, trades or careers. The other, and what I will call the native English theory, is that education has nothing to do with these matters, the province of education being to awaken the sense of general observation and to develop all-round qualities in a man who w\ afterwards, from instructors not educators, receive a specialist's training in one or other of the human activities.' Advocates of the German theory are not wanting amongst educational theorists in New Zealand. Education is regarded merely as a preparation for a living. It is that, of course, but more. It must liberalise and widen the mental horizon by fostering interests and extending knowledge beyond the narrow limits of the field in which a livelihood is to be won; and in a school of our type dealing with children, most of whom are under 17 years <of age. our aim must he not to turn out good accountants or good business men, but boys who may become such, boys who with developed minds and characters will be quick to assimilate new ideas and technical processes and apply them intelligently as opportunities arise. It is pleasing in this connection to turn to the recent proposals made by the Workers' Educational Association of England as indicating, not the academic view, but the attitude or organised labour to the problem of higher education. The Association, which is a federation of no fewer than 2150 trade unions and 381 'co-operative committees, in advocating an extension of the school age, emphasises the fact that in schools of every type the requirements of a liberal education must be paramount. A sound general education in childhood and adolescence, the Association declares, is the necessary foundation of any specialised course of technical or professional training both ill town and conntry, and that therefore technical education must be supplementary to secondary education. The proposals are 'of great interest as indicating that the workers of England are demanding for their children, not purely vocational education, but the same kind of spiritual and intellectual training which those in more favoured circumstances are accustomed to expect." ,