TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE. Will the State Foster It?

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 64, 21 September 1901, Page 8

TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE. Will the State Foster It?

EXPERT New Zealanders fill every branch of industry. If they feel that they have a special knowledge of any particular branch of industry or science, however, and wish to enhance that knowledge, they usually emigrate, there being neither sufficient educational inducement nor financial temptation to remain m their own country It is a well-known fact that the nativeborn New Zealander is mentally and physically as well equipped as the inhabitants of any othei country Leaving his own country, success seems to mvanably follow him * • • This colony is not sufficiently alive to the fact that it should turn out finished workmen from its own manufactory It is obviously a reflection on a progressive country that so few cxpeits in any branch of science 01 industry acquire their finished knowledge within their own gates. Primary educational facilities are, if not above reproach, still of a sufficiently high standard, but in the technical instruction that is to fit our youth to fight the battle of life, New Zealand may be regarded as somewhat behind. * • • There can be no doubt that the suggestion of a progressive member in the House recently, that greater facilities should be offered for technical education, is good. New Zealand is possibly destined, like its insular motherland, to become a manufacturing country The way should be opened for her to become so by the establishment and maintenance of a State system of technical instruction in the arts and industries that shall make it unnecessary to go elsewhere to gain the knowledge requisite to make and retain a reputation for skilful work and workmen In . Germany the cmployeis of skilled labour aic required to set aside some houis of their own time during the week foi the technical and scientific mstiuction of their people * • * The statute is not regaided as an interference with liberty, for it is designed to increase the natural desire tow ards perfection of work Immediately the statute was passed the employer recognised that the greater the skill of his people the larger the amount of better-class work, and he naturally aided the endeavour of the State to foster intelligent methods New Zealand, though allegedly capable of teaching otheis, may Icain a little from the Old World Perhaps, in the course of time she may be able to support herself at a pinch by her own industry, and m this connection there is no time like the present for learning to do so. *- * * We would like to see the subject of technical and scientific instruction made one of as much importance as that of primaiy education That the people of the colony have the elements for success m almost any bianch of industry no one questions. It is as much the duty of the State to foster, by all the means in its power, the desire of the people for advanced knowledge as it is their duty to instruct children m the three Rs A time may arrive when New Zealand will want all the knowledge that hci people can gain, and the in-

stitution of a national system of technical insliuction would certainly help m the direction indicated.