LIFE AND THE SCHOOL

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 74, 14 April 1937, Page 4

LIFE AND THE SCHOOL

"The sohool must be the servant to life. It must develop qualities and capaoitjes in youth that will have their value in mnlrrnp- the community thrive. I do not mean to say by this that the individual should be deprived of his individuality and become the passive tool of the community, like a bee or an ant. A community made up of standardised individuals, without personal qualities and ambitions, would be poverty-stricken indeed, and lack all possibility of development. The aim should be to produce individuals capable of independent action and thought, yet who feel that their greatest service in life is to the community. As far as I can judge, the English schools come nearest to the realisation of this ideal. "Wor^s are, and always will be, empty echoes, and the way to hell has always been accomplished by lip service to ideals. Personalities are not developed by what is seen and heard. They grow tbrongh work and action. Therefore the challenge to accomplishment is the most important in education. This is true, whether it deals with a child's first lesson in the alphabet or with the 1 thesis of a candidate for a doctor's degree, whether it means the learning of a poem, the writing of a theme, the interpretation or translation of a text, the solving of a mathematical problem, or bodily exercise in some sport. Ambition, or, in its milder form, strivirlg for recognition and standiog, is iirmly anchored ia humaa nfttttftt." — Professor Einstein.