NATIONAL EDUCATION

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 37, 7 November 1919, Page 6

NATIONAL EDUCATION

A NEED FOR ENLIGHTENMENT. Some interesting remarks on the reintiou of national reconstruction to national education were made by Sir. U. H. Uttley, principal of Scots College, in ail address delivered at the official opening of the collcjfo last night, 'the everyday use of tlia words efficiency and reconstruction during the war, implied, he said, a clear recognition of the lact that the national life had been to a great oxtent a failure, and that the organisation of that life was lacking in power and effectiveness. They implied further that a radical chance was necessary both in methods and ideals if Great Britain was to maiitaiii her position among the nations of the world when the war was over. . . ■. The time of reconstruction had now arrived, and it remained to be seen whether the efficiency displayed in tho destructive work of war could be carried over into the stupendous task of rebuilding the nation and the national "life. It was becoming widely recognised ill Great Britain and elsewhere that thb problom of national reconstruction was in the main tho problem of national education. It had been said that the future wolfaro of the nation depended on its schools. It had also been said that the 19th century, in spite of tho unprecedented splendour of its scientific achievement and the widespread extension of its material production had been spiritually a failure. The great forces which moved mankind had bcon out of touch with each other and had failed to furnish mutual support. The lack of co-ordination and sympathy was too evident to ]xi denied. Art and industry had little ill common, Labour was against Capital, science and religion still displayed considerable antagonism, class was ranged against class, Church against State, and not infrequently Church against Church. Reconstruction and efficiency wore not possible if the life forces of the nation were to be poisoned at the springs bv the bitterness o£ this mutual warfare. It would appear that tho whole world had been conspiring to subvert the basic principles of Christian civilisation. Democracy in the. past had been to many a mere synonym for unrestrained liberty, anil it was this interpretation that liiv at the roots of such movements as Bolshevism at tho present day. The old freedom, which was in a large measuro individualistic, would havo to be clearly differentiated from the new freedom, which found expression in tho new humanist movement in government and in education, and which was a reasserlion of tho immutable principles first formulated by the 1 founder of Christianity . . . Statesmen and educational leaders were insisting tlut the greatest need of the day was enlightenment and education. They asrerted that tlio full meaning and implications of the democratic ideal and its underlying principles were not understood by the great mass of tho peonle. A vigorous policy of sympathetic, enlightenment was required, and if the experience of tho cenlury that lay before them was. to ];e different from that which was just past this enlightenment would have to begin at school. . . . ,

The present, tjpucration would require lo gain n reasoned conviction of tho value of true democracy, which recognised not only the freedom of the individual, lint the duties and responsibilities that: that freedom entailed.