THE TRAINING COLLEGE.

Evening Star, Issue 23370, 13 September 1939, Page 8

THE TRAINING COLLEGE.

It is matter for satisfaction, that, with the opening of the new building opposite Logan Park, the Dunedin Training College has now a home worthy of its history and aspirations. The history, which goes back for sixty-three years, has been a great one. The aspirations mark that period, with its achievements, its uncertainties and vicissitudes, as only a beginning. “ The best is yet to be.” In accordance with the old Scottish tradition, the pioneer training college of New Zealand has turned out teachers —including many of the best—for the whole Dominion. It will continue that work with advantages in the building that will give it space and comfort, in sharp contrast with the cramped conditions of recent years. When it needs still larger mansions for its soul they will be most easily provided for it as this new and 'not too

rigid homo has been designed. The college, as has been ipointed out, has an_ ideal situation, opposite one of the city’s finest recreation grounds. And it takes possession of its new advantages when a special need has been made for them by new responsibilities that have developed for teachers with the movement towards new ideals in education—the ideals of ” this freedom.”

That watchword, with methods based on it, may make learning pleasanter for the child. Unless the end of it is to be futility and not profit it is not going to make his part easier for the teacher, but harder, a dozen times. Powers of influence and of co-ordinating knowledge will be required of him that could much more easily be dispensed with under the old conditions, though it is probable that the best teachers always employed more of the methods of tho “new education” than -were dreamed of by mere observers of their results. “ The school is to be no longer a factory for diplomas, but an instrument of spiritual elevation,” was a saying quoted at Monday’s gathering. It always was more than the first, and the difficulty about the second object lies in assessing whether it is being obtained or not. It would be a mistake to throw away all the old ideas because something, whose interfusion can mean an improvement of them, has been discovered or rediscovered. A boy must bo taught “ initiative,” but not at the expense of his arithmetic. “ Education for life ” will be defective if, along with “ spiritual elevation,” it does not include some concrete knowledge which is more than scraps, it would be hard to improve upon the formula of the chairman of the Southland Education Board when he said: “ So long as free education was not made too elastic, and the individual teacher exercised a firm control over his pupils, was responsible for a happy school atmosphere, and did not forget the essential value of the ‘ three R’s,’ education in the Dominion would continue to flourish.” We are particularly pleased that the fine social hall of the new training college has been named after Mr James Wallace. No honour was ever more deserved.