Bay Of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, AUG. 31, 1949 EDUCATION FOR OLD AGE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 32, 31 August 1949, Page 4

Bay Of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, AUG. 31, 1949

EDUCATION FOR OLD AGE

In an interesting address to the Auckland Rotary Club, Dr E. G. Sayers mentioned some of the causes of biological old age (as distinct from chronological old age) and added that the schools could begin.the task of fitting elderly people for retirement by providing a wide and general cultural education.

While the idea is doubtless excellent, and while probably Dr Sayers does not want to send the old folk back to school, one cannot help wondering just how much patience the old hands might have when they found themselves being coaxed along the gentle path of today’s “play way.” Of course, it can be said with probable truth that, though the subtleties of the new education might tend to make the boys of the old brigade bristle a bit, it might be better than being tanned on an aged. rump worn bony with constant parking on the office chair, or having one’s beard twisted by a playful school disciplinarian. Let us, then, imagine this wide and general cultural education in process of being instilled a la 1949. Each on his or her own little mat (embroideerd by a daughter’s loving hands, since Mother tottered to her eternal rest many, many years ago) the elders of the human tribe site eagereyed around a sweet young thing who burbles baby talk at them while she* tries to show them the relationship between a set of blocks and the English language.

And, speaking of blocks, what could be more culturally uplifting (and at the same time sufficiently entertaining to hold interest without strain) than a set of blocks which, fitted together, made one of those truly modern ■ ist pictures? The thing that appeals at once about the idea is that, with a truly modern picture, there need be no brain strain in putting the bits together. It doesn’t matter where the various pieces of human anatomy fit, for instance. The artists don’t care either. So it could be that some aged worshipper at the shrine of culture along the primrose play: way path might even improve upon a modern masterpiece by mounting the head upon a knee joint when it was originally tucked neatly into an arm socket. Who knows?

Super modern verse should be a cinch. To older people who have the silly, outdated idea that verse should scan and at least sometimes rhyme, what more fascinating game could there be than making verses that neither can nor rhyme—particularly if it could be explained that thpy must not make sense, either? But perhaps such exercises would be deemed by a superconsiderate education system

too, too, much of a strain for ageing brains. Perhaps a spot of folk dancing—at a gentle Chinese shuffle, of course, and with some suitably inane songs that could be parrotted easily and without thought—might be considered easier. Can it be honestly said that these, our elders, who were brought up in an age of such different culture from that which goes under the name today might not prefer to, be left to shorten their lives by obesity, beer and tobacco.

At least a fat old man’s pipe dreams of his youth might give him more pleasure than some aspects of modern culture absorbed by the painless processes of modern education.