CONTINUATION CLASSES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2019, 23 August 1919, Page 1

CONTINUATION CLASSES.

TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP. % Those who have devotedmost attention to the problem of social development, and those who are sspecially interested in the prospects of young' • people, are agreed that the practice of ending the education of the nation's young people at the fourteenth year is one that will have to be altered. In most enlightened countries the alteration has already been determined upon, and in some has been put into operation. England, France, and the United Stales*, for example, although weighed down by the burdens of war, have still had sufficient energy and foresight to lay their plans for a better training for their young people. The reason is twofold: in one aspect social, in the other industrial or commercial. It has become abundantly clear that an uneducated democracy is not sound, and the only way to raahe it sound and safe is to secure better intellectual and moral training for its young people. The other aspect, the industrial-commercial, is based on the fact that experience has shown that, the best workman is the educated workman—best for his employer, best for himself, and best for the community. Best for the employer because his trained intelligence and (-out rolled will-power make him quick and adaptable; best to himself because from his improved education he has gathered other interests and resources that enable him to sustain the labourious monotony of industrial employment and still live a life of varied human interest; best for the community because he has been taught to realise. Ihe common -interests of mankind and his developed reasoning powers protect him from the seductions of false prophets. There is some danger dial the continuation class will be regarded as chielly.,vocational or technical, and that in the curricula of these classes industrial or technical training will usurp too much of the Held at (he expense of the cultural training which is to prepare our future “masters”- to rule. To crowd out the training for citi/.ensbip.and to glorify the narrow vocational aspect is to accentuate class divisions and prepare the way for a tuture class war. Further, not every boy or girl is destined for a trade or a profession, but every boy and every girl is destined to be a citizen. They cannot bear their parts as citizens unless they arc adequately educated in the direction of developing .the civic instinct, the sense of duty and moral obligation, dial a broad cultural education will foster. The senior cadet course that has lately been prescribed will do something, but not nearly enough, in the right direction for the growing young men; but the girls do not shun 1 in it. I’here is no substitute for the continuation class, which will acknowledge no sex bar: and it is urgent that the reform he put in operation without delay.