“MENTAL SUICIDE”

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 97, 18 January 1935, Page 10

“MENTAL SUICIDE”

University Chancellor Speaks Plainly EDUCATION OF MASSES Method to Combat War Propaganda Dominion Special Service. Christchurch, January 17. “It is the surest precursor of retrogression and decadence when the Government of a country resorts to the funds of educational institutions to holster up its failing finances. It prefers the filling of empty stomachs to the filling of empty heads. As Napoleon thought armies advance on their stomachs, so do they think a nation advances. To meddle with the main public means of developing intelligence is to place a premium on stupidity and incompetence. And that means the decay of civilisation. The people will f?oon become yahoos, and not merely the fine arts but all arts will slowly disappear. It is the last act of despair to tamper with the finances of education. It means the suicide of a nation.” The foregoing were the remarks of ‘ Professor J. Macmillan Brown in his capacity as Chancellor of the University of New Zealand in his address at the annual meeting of the Senate at Canterbury College to-day. The theme of the Chancellor’s speech was the danger inherent in a policy of stagnation in education. He pointed out that even in these hard times a nation that had advanced notably on the road of liberal thought and culture might revert, through a halt in progressive education, to a form of barbarism. and instanced Hitlerised Germany. . “It is a matter of the greatest importance to this university and its colleges to know whether this depression which has been weighing us down for the last three or four years is going to be long or not,” the professor continued. “For the easiest resort of a Government that has to modify its evil results and especially its widespread unemployment with its usual accompaniment of distress in households is to the grants it has to make to educational institutions. Such periods have recurred again and again \in history, especially after devastating wars. . . . Better as a Unity.

“We are on the eve of realising that mankind is an organism that would function better as a unity that could control its evil passions. Strange to say, it is the youngest son of Europe in the New World, the United States, that is obstructing the advance and teaching, if not compelling, every nation to wrap itself .up in the self-isola-tion that is the sure route to suicide. And the world, at the very moment when East and West were about to lower the barrier between them and to see eye to eye in universal tolejance. was shattered into irreconcilable fragments. This youthful pioneer of the New World stood aside during the first half of the world-war and harvested such a store of profits from the Allies and their former markets that it took the place of Britain as the wealthiest community in the world able to finance the war with its loans, but not without the guarantee of the nation that it had displaced in superlative wealth

and had lent as freely. “When the war closed, rhe triumphant Allies began the series of blunders at Versailles by saddling the defeated with the cost of all the destruction that had been worked—a load of debt so great that it would take them generations If not centuries to pay off. But soon the Allies in Europe began to realise the grievousness of the blunder they had committed and at Locarno tried to lessen the burden placed on the back of the defeated. Lord Balfour and the British statesmen saw how It was sure to clog the life-blood of civilisation and he went to Washington and attempted to persuade the Americans to join the other Allies in cleaning the slate of all the war debts; but America would not be persuaded aud insisted on her “pound of flesh.” Then she made her own economic suicide, as well as that of the world, certain by raising her tariff wall so high that the European Allies could not pay either their debts or the interest on them with their produce or manufactures; they had to buy gold and pour it into the throat of this modern Midas. The process deranged the currencies of'the world and worst of all that of the United States.

A Sinister Influence. “It is this that has abnormally intensified the depression that was bound to follow the Great War and driven every nation in the world to enclose itself in higli tariff -walls and so clog, if not stop, the circulation of the economic life-blood of mankind. And it is this that keeps international hatreds and . suspicions alive. But there is another and more deliberate cause. It is the armament-makers with their network of munition factories all over the civilised world; their existence and profit depend, on keeping wars going. or at least on keeping alive that mutual fear among nations which resists disarmament and prepares for coming wars by increase of armaments and of their efficiency. And now martial array has completely changed its methods and forms. It is no longer the personal outfit and training of the individual soldier that tells most in the battles and campaigns, but the machinery and chemistry of the nation or nations. And these can be supplied best by companies that have the finest experts and unlimited finances at their command.

“But what these companies need even more is command of the most successful journals and journalists in each nation to keep the fever of alarm in constant action. For they make large and constant profits out of preparations for war whether for defence or aggression. Armaments have got to be renewed or replaced every few years, as the experts are ever discovering new and more destructive forms of munitions. But it is the journalistic arm of the armament-makers that is their most potent weapon. It keeps the world, but especially Europe, in a perpetual state of nerves, for that is the state which keeps the armament factories unceasingly busy. And some of the foremost politicians of thfc world have large interests in these. Even Hitler was backed up by directors of this explosive network when he was struggling for-power in Germany. Nor is it easy to see how mankind is to get clear of these shackles of iron, unless all the nations of the world combine to suppress them; for ono nation or one alliance of nations, however powerful, to attempt this would concentrate upon it all the armoury of the rest. How far we are from

the ideal of a world united in love of peace can be seen by the failure of all attempts at disarmament. . “As for the depression which drives our politicians to make raids‘on the resources of our educational institutions, it differs from all those that have periodically preceded it in two respects. First, it has now the whole world to oppress with its plague of unemployment and under-consumption, and second, the armament-makers have their grip on’ the throat of mankind. To get rid of the former there is needed the spread of international altruism till it covers the whole world. • Unfortunately this cannot take place as long as the second is allowed to continue. The profit and life of the arma-ment-makers depend upon the prevention of international altruism; for that would mean the abolition of war and of preparation for war. And never will their grip be undone till all the nations of the world have come together and become united in their resolve to take command of them and their intrigues and abolish their network of factories. “As long as the fear of war exists in the international mind, this depression will continue, choking the channels of commerce,” the Chancellor went on. “For it is, as I have shown, completely unlike all that preceded it. It is kept deliberately alive by an agency that thrives on war and the fear of war. It is a life-and-death struggle between mankind and an art that is new in the history of the world, an al’t so powerful and so destructive that it could sweep life and all its works from the face of the earth.

Only Hope in Education. “The only chance of suppressing or even limiting the scope of this destructive art is greater intelligence in the human race. And this can be attained chiefly by education. Educational institutions should therefore be the last to have their .finances reduced in times of depression. They have the youth of a country in the formative or plastic stage, and that is the stage when it is easiest to develop intelligence. It is on this that the keen outlook and wisdom of the succeeding generations depend. And without this keenness of outlook and wise penetration in mankind, war and the preparation for war, the source of most human misfortunes, will 'never be traced to their true source, the network of arma-ment-making. And when the human race as a whole see plainly whence their disasters conic, they will, led by their wise statesmen, take measures to extirpate this destructive art and its masters.

“Next to experience and competition during the lifetime it is education makes the intelligence of man to increase. Whether the heredity passes on that acquired by one generation to those that follow is still a disputed question amongst evolutionists. One thing they are agreed upon is the influence of the environment upon the intelligence of the human race. Improve the environment and man grows more intelligent; tlie morons grow fewer and fewer. And education is a deliberate attempt to improve the environment. Races, ages and nations are more truly distinguished from each other by their system of education than by any other feature. Its growth is the growth of civilisation.

“Nor is it impossible for a highlyeducated and | swiftly-advancing nation or race to swhig back into barbarism. A striking example of this is being enacted before our eyes by Hitlerised Germany with its persecution and extrusion, of its most cultured scientists, artists and educators because they are not of the Nordic Aryans. The result lias been a return to savagery of the most sanguinary type And without the highly cultured element in its environment it is more than likely that Germany will fail back into primeval barbarism, while the addition of the cultured exiles to tlie educators of tlie neighbouring countlies will develop their civilisation and power. The same thing occurred with the Revocation of .the Edict of Nantes. It impoverished tlie culture of Erance and prepared tlie way for the French Revolution and the Napoleonic empire, while it enriched the Protestant countries .and especially England with the Huguenots and their arts and higli intelligence and love of freedom.

England the Home of Liberty. “We have another instance in our own day that has not yet fully worked out its effect on the world. The .Bolshevik revolution drove out of Russia all the halo of refinement and bold thought that encircled the Court of the Czars; it left the huge empire the breeding-ground of poverty and misery; whilst it retained the old tyranny and oppression, changing only its centre and spirit. The Scandinavian nations, Switzerland, the United States and the British Empire alone remain the homes of liberty, justice and tolerance. Britain especially remains the refuge for fugitives from oppression. “These are the nations that have not relaxed their efforts to make all classes educated. Nor have they even when hard pressed dipped into the tin ances of their educational institutions. They have been the first to recognise the capacity and, rights of women to advanced education and to the franchise. If there is one thing that will ensure the retrogression of Germany into barbarism, it will be the exclusion of women from the higher education, from public life, and their immurement in household duties. It will withdraw from the boyhood and youth and meetings of men one of the chief refining influences, that of highly educated women. The purpose is to make the men more inclined and.fit for war; it will harden and brutalise them till it reduces them to the level o’f the savage fighting men of primeval times.”