EDUCATION IN THE ARMY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 142, 11 March 1919, Page 5

EDUCATION IN THE ARMY

NEW ZEALAND'S EXAMPLE. The educational system in operation in tho New Zealand Expeditionary Force was the subject of an address delivered before tho Royal Colonial Institute in London recently, by Captain J. R. Kirk, Director of Education, Now Zealand Forces, undor the title "The New Zealand Soldier: His Outlook." Sir Thomas Mackenzie, High Commissioner for the Dominion, presided. The lecturer explained that the educational system was in operation not only in tho camps and hospitals, but also in tho field, and that the results had been extremely gratifying. In addition to the educational classes there wero classes which were wholly vooational, and comprised woodwork (carpentry, joinery, and cabinctniaking), motor engineering and , motor mechanics generally, including tyre repairing; bootinaking, and repairing; wool-classing, pig and poultry breeding; bookkeeping; shorthand and typewriting. The classos had ten.carried on sufficiently long to evidence tho marvellous pyschological offect produced. Indifference had been overcome, tho spirit and moral of the men had been improved, and their whole outlook brightened Lieutenant-Colonel Earl Stanhope, Parliamentary Secretary to the War Office, moving a vote of thanks to the lecturer, 6aid this was not' the first matter in whioh the Mother Country had been glad to learn from the example of New Zealand. When •he came back . from France and went under Viscount Milner at the War Office he found his chief very keen on this work of increasing the educational opportunities of the men in the Army. Mr. Fisher, the Minister of Education had done a great work in his Education Act, but it could not come into full operation until we had more teachers and more schools, and oven then it would bo years before tho boys and girls who came under that improved system could take thoir places in tho community. But in the Army we already had the pick, of the nation,, and tho educational system which was being adopted and extended among tho home ; troops was only part of a very much \ larger 6cheme of education now in oper- ■ ation in the British Army. The lectures wero giving excellent results, and when the soldiers returned to civil life they would probably be able to compete more successfully in tho labour market than they would otherwise have been able to do. The men in the Army were better men .physically than when they were in civil'life; in some Tcgiments military service had added li inches to their chest measurement and H stone to their weight. It was Lord Milner's desire ' that our men should return to civil life 1 not only physically but educationally bet- J ter 'than they entered it. ,