EDUCATIONAL MATTERS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 94, 15 January 1919, Page 8

EDUCATIONAL MATTERS

A CANADIAN VISITOR'S VIEWS

TRAINING FOR DEMOCRACY

Members of the Educational Institute last evening listened to a brief address by a Canadian visitor, Mr. \V. D. iiayley, who is touring Xev,' Zealand. Mr. Bayley is a teacher of history , and civics in Winnipeg, and members of the institute last evening welcomed him to their meeting as a fellow-teacher.

Mr. Bayley touched upon a number of subjects, and among them the peculiar difficulties in tho way ot a national system of education in the country from whifji he came. Canada had in the first place belonged to another race than the British, having a religion that was not the religion of the majority of British people, and in their confederation tho Canadians had giveiu certain privileges to a certain Church and to a certain nationality in certain provinces. Thus in religious, matters.and in political matters Canadians were greatly divided. Practically everything they dealt with divided them into cliques and classes, and made the problem of educationists a difficult one, because if the school was not to be the unifying forco ho did not see where the unifying force was 'to come from. (Applause.) Now Zealand should have some school teachers in Parliament, he thought, because there ought to be somebody there specially to represent the viewpoint of the' child. This viewpoint could not be adequately represented by men whose chief concern was roads -and bridges and similar matters. The school buildings and school equipment in. New Zealand had been a grievous disappointment to the Canadian visitors who had seen them after hearing so much about the progressive nature of this part of tho world. Experience in Canada had proved that a child responded to good furniture and that it was far easier to keep a good desk spotless and scratchless than to keep an old desk or a cheap desk 6potless and scratchless. The teacher should havo more say in educational matters, because while boards and committees might be at the head of education the teachers were at the heart of it. 'In Mr. Bayley's opinion the Minister of Education lived up to his professions, because not only did representatives of the institute interview him, but Mr. Bayley himself had interviewed him and given him the most radical, unorthodox, and rebellious doctrines as to how teaching should bo done. "Tho Minister," in Mr. Bayley's words, "just smiled and said: 'I like that! I like that!'" ■The educational needs of democracy provided the problem with, which teachers were faced to-<lay, and the speaker was an out-and-out rebel where the old text-books and many of the old teachings wore concerned. When in his district a question came up of, say, tariff or Free-trade, he thought it was "up to him" to teach thechildren what it meant. He drew their attention as best he could to what tariff was for and what Free-trade was for. Then the boy who came from a Freetrade home and had never heard about the tariff went home and 'told his father the other side. Similarly, tho boy from the tariff home told his father the othej side. Then one father said that tho teacher was using tho school to propagate Protection and the other that he was using it to propagate Free-trade; and both mistrusted tho teacher.

If they were going to mako the world safe for democracy, said Mr. Bayley, they must make it safe by training for democracy. Why to-day take tho children for ten years through hooks teaching them to look up to the divine right of the Sovereign? Let the dead past bury its dead. There was no justification for teaching history at all except as it interpreted tho.past and pointed to tho next step. As regarded the teachers themselves, he would rather see them given far more privileges than given large increases of salary. Teachers should hafto above everything greawr privileges for self-culture, for travelling, and training, and if those were the main thing there would be kept out of the profession those who went iuto it only for the money, and there would be brought into it those who would be in it for tho work. If teachers had the privileges he suggested the work would bring a joy that a largo salary couldi never bring.

Mr. Bayley received the heartiest thanks of the institute for his address.