WORKERS' EDUCATION

Taranaki Daily News, 26 May 1920, Page 5

WORKERS' EDUCATION

THE OBJECTS OUTLINED. ORGANISER IN NEW PLYMOUTH. As the Hon. C. J. Parr recently remarked in Wellington, education is "a veritable passion" at present, and his oßservation might well ho given a worldwide application. The war has shown the value of the educated worker and the educated soldier, and everywhere public atention is being directed toward educational movements. The moat distinctive feature of the present unrest is the direction of attention to the adult A recent Royal Commission in England has presented to Mr. Lloyd George's Government a remarkable report in which it lays the greatest emphasis on the future "of adult education and the connection of the Universities with it. One of the bodies—its origin dates onlv had- to 1063 in Enclnnd, and to 1915 in New Zealand—whose development is one of the most remarkable features of this modern movement is the Workers' Educational Association. Mr. D. G. N. Seymour, M.A., until recently general secretary ot the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association, and now organiser for the W.E.A., in at present, on a visit to New Plymouth with th« object of founding the movement here. The work of the Association is directed to bringing the University to the- people. At a purely nominal charge to its stunenis rt provided tutors in practically any University subject for which ft study group would be formed. The tutorial method adopted in its classes, by which the lecture of the tutor was followed by a class dsliate, not onlv furnished the surest method of reaching the truth, but developed in class members the ability for clear thinking and especially clear speaking. "The W.E.A.," Mr. Seymour states, "holds boundless possibilities. More even than in the huge cities its work is appreciated in small towns and remote villages where any intellectual life is almost non-existent. As the University ha.s hitherto been constituted only 'those can make use of it who can spare the tins and the money to go to the University centre. The WE.A is the popular University, for its course is a University courso, its tutors have in nearly every caso University honors, and its membership is open to all who are prepared to study-' A public meeting will bo addressed l>y Mr. Seymour to-night.