NATIONAL EFFICIENCY.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 April 1916, Page 7

NATIONAL EFFICIENCY.

the war and education. In the course of his report to the annual meeting last night of housein the Central School district, the retiring chairman of the committee (Mr. 8. J. Smith) drew attention to the need for greater interest being taken in educational matters in the future by those who are interested in the welfare of our future citizens. This referred particularly to parents. He added: "Many of the problems that are arising from the war are problems of education. It may not be true that war is the supreme test of national efficiency, since a people may be morally strong, and industrially effective, and still be unprepared on the mechanical side for the ordeal of battle. But modern war does apply a searching test of those personal and national characteristics that it is the aim of true education to inculcate, and, moreover, it raises great issues, pressing and perplexing, that belong almost entirely to the domain of education, using the word in its widest sense. Knowledge, persistence, breadth of view, and the power to coordinate thought and action, in the individual as in the nation, are essential to action in war as they are to success in the peacefful affairs of life. National efficiency must be our goal. A great educational expert has said that the immediate efforts of educational authorities must be directed towards making the instruction in the elementary schools n. fitting preparation, not so much for the higher secondary education, as for the practice of the many technical pursuits in which the overwhelming majority of the children will be subsequently engaged. There is an enormous amount of work to be done in New Zealand in this direction, and if we are to hold in peace what we will have gained in war we must strive towards the, goal of national efficiency now."