TECHNICAL VERSUS CULTURAL EDUCATION

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 2, 27 September 1918, Page 6

TECHNICAL VERSUS CULTURAL EDUCATION

Sir, —I see that the ,(Socialist fcanJidate for Wellington Central suggests [see the Press report's of his Sunday evening address] that the Minister of Education is (under Bome sinister influence or pressure) heading things ofE . in the direction of technical, at the expense cultural, education, rnd that too with a view to discourage- the children of the industrial classes from aspiring to what has always gone by the name of higher education! Now, I cannot for a- moment credit the idea that the Minister of' Education entertains any such sinister design; but I do know that a movement, is on foot in certain rural areas (and wider the auspices of certain educational authorities too) to substitute technical schools for district high schools, and there can be practically no doubt that this movement is due to the influence of wouldbe capitalistic exploiters, who would discourage the children of the industrial classes aspiring to the higher and more learned employments and. professions to which higher education is. the only portal. Possibly enough considerable pressure may be brought to bear on the Minister by this school of proßpeotive exploiters of the labour of the young industrialists of the future, but I feeT confident that the Minister will \

not.be found wanting when such \prospecting" intriguers "happen along." It is rumoured that in some districts education committees or boards >.ava agents canvassing parents in the interest of moribund technical_ institutions, and getting, signatures in favour of-- converting their high schools into technical schools. I feel confident that the Minister of Education is not in the slightest degree disposed to identify himself with such as would engineer our educational system in the interests of would-be exploiters of our econouiio conditions and of our industrial classes. Unless we' are to follow the unholy example of Germany (in the abuse audi misuse of technical and scientific knowledge) we must see to it that the technical school is an adjunct of the high school, and not vice versa—l am, • to., , • . EX-DOMINIE.