SOCIAL CO-OPERATION

Taranaki Daily News, 15 December 1920, Page 4

SOCIAL CO-OPERATION

THE SPIRIT OF SEKVICE.

AN EDUCATIONALIST'S VIEWS. The true aim of education and its bearing on life were reviewed by Professor Hunte'r, of Victoria College, Wellington, in. the course of an address at the breaking up ceremony of the New Plymouth Boys' High School last night. The speaker also had something to say on the present spirit of restlessness which prevails, and comparisons thereon with events in past generations.

The question arose, said Professor Hunter, Why are there educating people at all? One thing in the education system which seemed to be seriously wrong was that teachers, in his opinion, held in too great a degree the idea that their conceptions of the world and of life were tp he placed in the minds of the rising generation. He did not believe that teachers had any right to force their opinions into the minds of the next generation. The people in years to come, would, all hoped, live under very different conditions than those existing to-day, and it was only reasonable that they should be allowed to iorin their own opinions of life. The teacher's duty should be not to teach people what to think, but how to think.

We were living in very troublesome times and the world was passing through a serious change. What was 'the purport of it all! The nearest parallel in history to this state of affair 8 was to be found about the Middle Ages. The" people then had looked on life through one particular institution —the church—till geographical, philosophical and other discoveries roused Man to the conception that the real tiling in in this life was man himself. In other words, man discovered himself. From that time onward man had been working out that conception. AH knew how it had run to seed in England at the time of what was known as the industrial revolution. The conditions were such as were described by suck a conservative as Lord Milner as a "general scramble and go-as-you-please." "What is the basis of unrest!" the speaker asked. Ho remarked that sotoe were always frightened when people got restless. The fact was that they of the older generation were beginning to get settled habits of thinjeing, and liked to go along in the same fashion without disturbance. From the point of view of human history, however, it was a very good thing that people began to get restless. did not affirm that unrest resulted in good; it might result in either evil or good, but there was the possibility of good coming out of it. He believed that at preeent tfe world was passing through another great phase—that of man discovering himself again, But not as an individual or ordinary being, but as one who wan linked most closely not only with the members of his own nation, but also with the members of the Whole of the human race. The lesson surrounding this was nowhere so admirably taught as in a public school. There was no institution in which the social cooperation and spirit of social service lias so clearly seen as in a secondary ichool, The whole success of the school depended on the spirit, and it was the institution of that spirit that the world really needed to-day. They wanted to see growing up in different parts Of New Zealand that sort of Spirit that would enable the next generation to avoid the mistakes of the last. If the next generation was to accomplish thijl'they must be given a proper and reasonable chance, and institutions such as their school provided the chance. In connection with educational, needs, Professor Hunter expressed the opinion that the community would not be doing its duty until it was prepared to put the sum of ten millions on the Estimates for Education' alone. While it was true (lint some of the conditions in the secondary schools were not what they should be, the conditions ill the university college, particularly the two northern ones, were disgraceful. Students were being taken in with no provision made for their physical welfare. They had to make their own jirrangements for board and residence, -(tad what, was wanted were residential ciSlleges that would provide the home life and that corporate spirit that was so necessary, thus carrying on the good work done in the secondary schools. He hoped that before long the authorities would see the desirability of having residential colleges so that the team spirit could bo carried through the universities and into life itself.