EDUCATIONAL NOTES.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 1600, 31 May 1924, Page 13 (Supplement)

EDUCATIONAL NOTES.

CATASTROPHE AND EDUCATION. (By "Dominie.") Mr C. Delisle Burns has written a masterly little book which should be read by all who seek to influence the public opinion of the world. For this book deals with the Master-Key of the world's most urgent, problem — understanding between the nations. Its extraordinary lucidity—its inevitablencss—makes it specially desirable for schools, for it supplements the ordinary history, and like a compass marks the course of human history—the history of civilisation. We are, told that the history of civilisation is a history of peace—that the history of peace is the history of the intercourse of nations; that-the history of civilisation is the history of man's outlook and man's emotions, not of man's possessions. We are warned, too, that "the history of peace must be 'a race between catastrophe and education.' " Our Social History. Mr Burns explains the purpose of this most arresting book —(lie full interest of which is by no means manifest in its severe title—"A Short History of International Intercourse."

He says that the main reason why it is written is that "there is no history which shows how far civilised Jife has arisen out of the peaceful cooperation between different 'peoples. Social history has now very largely replaced the old political history of battles and kings; but it has two defects.

"First, it is nationalistic, so that the contributions to civilised life made by other races than ours seem to be only 'foreign influences' acting upon a development" which is predominantly local. Civilised life, like its components science, music, painting, commerce, and 'manners,' is international if taken as a whole, although the people of one locality or another take the lead at any one time and in any one component of civilisation. "Secondly, social history tends to be too much a matter of 'economies'; but commerce, manufacture, and 'wealth' are merely instruments, quite meaningless if unconnected with the sciences and the arts. The history of civilisation is mainly a history of man's outlook and man's emotions, not of man's possessions." This book, says Mr Burns, "is a history of peace, because peace is the name for the common cause of all this growth, namely, fhe transfer of ideas from one race lo another. The flower of civilisation grows in one locality or another; but it is fertilised by I hose who travel in body or mind. The history of peace is nol indeed the whole of human history. Wars and revolutions are important, and have sometime, promoted liberty or secured order.

Mr Burns states (hat his "preliminary sketch is intended to indicate the lines along which study in schools and restarch should develop, in order that history' may become less local in interest and may be based upon a clearly conceived standard of civilised life." The Use of Peace, Mr Burnes' first chapter is concerned with the "Beginnings of Peace in Europe"—the recovery after the Dark Age. He then goes on Lo the Middle Ages, to the Renaissance, to the Enlightenment, to the Industrial Age. Then he deals with the periods just before and since the war, and shows what remains to be done tomorrow. The book opens thus:— ''While there is peace one man talks to another and both grow wiser, one sells his spare food in exchange for another's spare clothing, and both grow richer and happier. When they are not at peace men use force and fraud to destroy or to impoverish other men. Peace, then, is the relation between individuals or groups of men, in which they co-operate for the advance of knowledge, for artistic production, and for the improvement of their material circumstances, for all which purpose it is necessary that violence and fraud should cease. "The quarreis of individuals and the concerted violence between groups of men. called war. have been common enough; and they have made the history of humanity appear lo fjc a record of blood and tears. But peaceful conditions have been secured within the frontiers of Stales, and some advance has been made in securing peace, for many years at a time even between different peoples. The record of all this achievement is political history. The use of* peaceful conditions, however, is as important as the method by which they have been secured. Art/sciencj, and the amenities of life are the true explanations of the value set upon law and order and liberty; and the record of the use of peace, therefore, is the true history of peace."

The Great Opportunity

Mr Burns has a story to tell which is both depressing and exhilarating. It is a story of wasted opportunities. It is a story of amazing opportunities still in hand. It is ours to go up and possess the land of To-morrow. To-day we sin against the light if we do not advance. For we know the better and do the worse. We know what has to be done. Pare we fold our hands and do nothing?

"The greatness of our country will depend upon what we can do for the world at large," declares Mr Burns. "And patriotism should now-- be devotion to one's country" in this service. Thus the history of intercourse between peoples makes a man value his own country more highly, in the many tasks that the past has loft unfinished, England or France or Italy has great deeds still to do if Englishmen or Frenchmen or Italians are willing." "Every nation, for the sake of itsown happiness and for the sake of the great it may do. will want to obtain all the best ideas it can from others and to be able to use the arts and the goods which other nations produce. Patriotism on this side, then, will involve getting all w ran for our own countrymen which foreigners can give. In any case the new patriotism does not involve opposition between nations

"We are at the beginning, not at the en-d, of civilisation. The achievements of the last thousand years are only first efforts in civilised life."

Our task, then, is to make To-rnor-row. Let's begin!