THE W.E.A.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 104, 19 May 1937, Page 7

THE W.E.A.

Opening of a Session in Hastings The opening of the session of the Workers' Education Association will take the form of a lecture by the newiy-appointed tutor-organiser, Mr P. Martin Smith, M.A., LLB., Dip. Ed., in the Pasadena tea-rooms on Friday evening at eight o'clock. Mr W. E. Bate, LLB., will preside. . The Workers' Educational Association had its origin in England about thirty-five years ago and marked the culmination of th© l°ng struggle of the working-class in England to gain for themselves educational facilities that were denied them through the ordinary channels of education. Eor over twenty years the W.E.A. has been a strong movement in the university centres of New Zealand, and the present effort to extend these facilities throughout the country districts is a most laudable one and one that deserves the support of all thinking men and women. The method adopted in those places remote from the university centres is to form discussion groups to pursue courses of study specially written for the purpose by authorities in the particular field. The work of these groups is supplemented by publiq lectures. The courses of study on the programme for this year include "The Approach to Economics", "International Questions of the Day", "The Labour Movement in New Zealand", "Literature and Social Change", "New Zealqnd To-day and To-Morrow", "Plan or no Plan", - 'Problems of Human Nature", "Russia", "Understanding Human Nature". In addition to these courses provision ig made for the study of such themes as music, art, literature and the drama by means of what are known as box courses. The debt that several of our present Cabinet Ministers, including the Prime Minister, have exprpssed as owed by them to the W.E.A. is a testimony of the value of the work this organisation tion is doing. No one in these days of rapid cliange can afford to neglect a foim of adult education that is designed to give informafion on the crucial issues of the day. Tlie subject of Mr Martin Smith's Jectqre will be "Education and Modern Democracy". Mr Martin Smith is an educationalis of liigli standing and was a member of the committee set up by the New Zealand Council of Educational Iiesearch to draw up plans for educational reorganisation for submission to the Minister for Education.