The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND MONDAY, AUGUST 18, 1930 EDUCATION—IS IT LAUGHABLE ?

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1053, 18 August 1930, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND MONDAY, AUGUST 18, 1930 EDUCATION—IS IT LAUGHABLE ?

UXi\ ERSITI education in tJi is country is laughed at by some o£' its own administrators.' There is authority for making that brusque comment on an expensive system. “The whole thing,” declares the Hon. .Sir George Fowlds, a former Minister of Education, and president of the Auckland University College Council “is an anachonism which no place else in this world would tolerate and which is laughed at when one attempts to describe the system.” If the whole system of university education in the Dominion he merely a subject for derision, then it is long past time for a thorough overhaul. Clearly, at the best, there is need of drastic reform. In a second instalment of diffuse and confused wisdom which, in itself, supports the plea for a complete reorganisation of both elementary and higher educational methods the Select Committee on Education reveals and emphasises thirteen definite defects in the university system. Whatever else has been left obscure (perhaps the half has not been told), it has been made plain that primary education in Ihis country is poorer than Australia’s very ordinary standard, and that university education here is not only laughable, hut is such as “would not he tolerated anywhere else in this world.” .Surely this is a lamentable result after sixty-one years of effort, marked throughout the years with continuous attempts at reform.

How far are these disquieting statements justified? Laymen will find it difficult to supply a convincing answer. For years they have been lulled by assertions that all was well funda-* mentally with New Zealand’s system of education and that only here and there, in certain methods of administration, there was any real necessity for reform and reconstruction. The disillusionment has come at last. In a comparative sense there is virtually no university education in this country at all. Possibly some qualification should he made in respect of Otago particularly and also Canterbury to less extent. But, generally, the whole sorry scheme apparently, nay, even admittedly, is not much better than a glorified night school at which eager pupils may, by a system of cram and spot questions, obtain impressive degrees and certificates with which to meet the world and take all they can out of it for themselves. It has been said (one hopes that the saying was satirical and exaggerated) that a New Zealand Bachelor of Arts'may come through with distinction, but too often comes through without the arts. There may be some truth in that piquant cleverness, hut surely not the whole truth. It appears to be fairly certain, however, that while the New Zealand University stands for the traditional outlook—an outlook which will enable a university graduate to meet his tasks endowed with sound judgment, freedom from narrow prejudice, and “a set of ideals which, if not very profound, are at least not wholly materialistic”—it has failed laughably, if not lamentably, to establish a system in which students would learn for learning's sake and take distinctive degrees in their stride. Tn other words, the aim has been not so much at cultured distinction, as at a crammed and crowded equipment for seizing the main chance in life. If this interpretation he astray, then the report of the Select Committee is merely an extravagant rigmarole of words and crude ideas. Of course, there need not he in this practical country any fretting over the marked lack of those qualities in university education which find expression elsewhere in the immemorial tradition of manners and mannerisms of scholars from venerable institutions. A correct accent and a sports cap may he quite desirable, but the modern world demands something more than these distinctions. It wants thinkers, philosophers, competent legislators, efficient industrialists and men of business, and a great deal more of the intellectual individualism which proves that educated men can he masters of themselves. It is not necessary to discuss the recommendations of the Select Committee whose report at least has the merit of disturbing the sluggish pool of education. But ii ought to be noted that the committee persists in its belief that the machine is greater than the man. It insists upon advocating a division of the present administration. A separate university with the two existing colleges in each Island might improve defective administration, but what really is wanted is a searching overhaul of the whole scheme.