The Workers’ Educational Association.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 February 1922, Page 3

The Workers’ Educational Association.

ITS PLACE IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION; (By H. Belshaw, Tutor W.E.A.) The Workers’ Educational Association was founded in 1903 by a small group of co-operators headed by Albert Mansbridge, the son of a Gloucester carpenter. Mansbridge early began to develop a: love for the good, the true ajiid the beautiful, and to realize the Immense problems raised by the condition of the mass of the people in his own co.untry. While still a youth, he attended a great service in Gloucester Cahcdrat, and there he received that spiritual impetus which prompted him to concentrate his endeavours towards the improvement of the material and spiritual well-being \ of his fellows. Gradually, his ideal crystallized and with the inspiration of a visionary lie conceived the idea of an organisation, having for its object the education of the workers.

The Universities had already made a start in the education of adult workers bv means of various settlements such as Tynbee Hall, by institutions such as the London Working Men’s College, and by the University Extension Movement, while organisations of workers themselves filled with the desire for education, dated hack as far as the Chartist Movement. It is.the merit of the AV.E.A. that it has combined into one powerful current these two streams of thought. The University student or lecturer, removed as he tends to he from the

world of hard facts and practical experiences to a realm of abstract though, is brought into close contact by means of the W.K.A. classes with workers of all sorts—manual labouromechanics, “brain-workers”— whose very closeness to the facts of life causes them to lose that wide vision or to realize but dimly the movement of these complex forces, that are working beyond the narrow horizon of individual experience. This, then, is the true value of the W.K.A. movement; that

it aims not only at brinjrinp; the results of years of patient and specialized study liv University graduates within the reach of the workcre, hut also break ing down that isolation from the real world which so often characterises our universities. “That there is need for a wide culture, for something: which is not in any way' measurable in pounds, sliill'insis and pence,” writes (J. 1). 11. dole in his hook “The World of hahour,” not even, the most ardent advocate of the economic interpretation of

history need he :it pains to deny. Such ;i movement is just, coming into existence. The W.E.A. is gradually spreading over the country and offering to adult workers the chance of real education which has always been W'tli-held from them in the past. . . the ini porta nee of this movement is that it does not and cannot have the result ot lifting men and women out of their class. This was a fault often legitimately found with earlier efforts at working class education, for when a man i,s asked to give ii|) his whole time to the business of being educated, he is inevitably removed from his work and his class, hut to the W.E.A. such a complaint has no application.. . ; . That this movement is gradually having its

effect, and that this effect will he progressive, cannot lie doubted. It is growing, and men do not come out ot the classes just as they went in. Little groups of intelligent and informed "oik ers are springing up all over the country. These groups will in the Inline prove as powerful a leaven as the first Trade Union fits or the groups of enthusiasts who followed the lead of the Rochdale pioneers.” Similarly writes

Dr Horton: “Donfc make any mislake about the spirit that- founded it and those- "ho joined it were inspired by a love for tlu> pure, the. beautiful, the true. It was a glorious movement, because of this spirit. There was noth ire sordid in it. nothing base and crooked. It is he spiritualising of the labour movement in tin* Knglish-spoaking world which is really the great hope for the future. r l'his association to my thinking reveals itself as the real centre and motive of the labour movement. Hero you get tbc soul of what at first seems to be a somewhat vast and clumsy body.”

So, the W.E.A. is not a movement for developing the passion for mental gymnastics, but a. movement which aims at assisting the progress of the race hv means of a truly educative policy. Above all, it is not a. propagandist movement. T aims, not at propagating ally particular school of thought, but at encouraging clear thinking. Whatever a man’s views in economies, history, or philosophy he is expected to enter the. W.E.A. classes as a. student. He is not asked to aliienate himself from the interests of his class non to renounce It ', particular economic, historical philosophical -or other iieliefs. All that, the W.E.A. require of him is' that he shall endeavoured to think elenrlv and for

himself. The method of conducting the classes is intended to give as much scope.for this as possible. A lecture is followed by a discussion. It is in this discussion that the great educative value of the movement lies. The lecturer is expected to present both sides to a particular problem as impartially as it is humanly possible-to do ; thr. class do the rest. Those who attend a, AV.E.A. class for the first time arc usually astounded a the high degree of intelligence displayed by ' the average student, who attends and at th-■ amount of discussion which may centre round some apparently simple point. So, in spite, of weaknesses such as are bound to attend any young and vigorously growing movement, the AV.E.A. is already a force making for national progress. The recent AV.E.A. summer school at lat tie River was described as “a body of advanced thinkers.” The organisation has difficulties to overcome the usual apathy displayed by the mentally lazy; the suspicion of those who do not realize its objects and who, strangely enough, persistently refuse to attend its classes, and libel it In ignorajnee of its true motives, regarding it as a catspaw of this party or that ; the hesitancy of those who feel .that they are expected to go hack to school and take formal lessons. But formality is not yet a. curse and the AV.E.A. nor is the atmosphere of; its classes that of the schoolroom. It is a body with a personality of its own and its educative policy is based on the prinI ciple of mutual help. The tioe is com-