BANISHING WAR

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 996, 12 June 1930, Page 16

BANISHING WAR

EDUCATION’S PART “With the ideals of citizenship in view, no one will complain of the expenditure on education, which, if properly directed, will do more than anything to banish war, with its infinitely greater cost.” This statement was made by the Hon. A. J. Stallworthy, Minister of Health, in opening the dental clinic at Mount Eden School yesterday afternoon. Contrasting the cost of war with the cost of education, Mr. Stallworthy said that reliable authorities estimated the Great War cost £50,000,000,000, and 10,000,000 lives, representing a cost of £5,000 to kill each man. “We lost 17,000 men up to the iast year of the war. At a per capita cost of £ 5,000, it cost an allegedly civilised world £85,000,000 to kill 17,000 New Zealanders—a sum approximating New Zealand’s own total war debt. In face of these figures, what can we say of the cost of £l3 a year of educating a New Zealand boy? “Democracy can be made safe for the world only by the provision of true education for the coming generation, by the harmonious development of body, mind and spirit, and the inculcation of high ideals which will give safety and direction to those developed powers.” Reviewing the growth of New Zealand’s education system, the Minister said that last year the total cost of educating the 250,000 children in primary and post-primary schools had amounted to nearly £4,000,000, and in addition, the 26,000 pupils in private schools had been educated at an estimated cost of £350,000. True education would enable the coming generation to render efficient social service, and the money involved could bo regarded as a good investment.