EDUCATION BY TRAVEL.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 May 1922, Page 11

EDUCATION BY TRAVEL.

SENDING BOYS TO ENGLAND. • NOVEL SCHEME OUTLINED. THE EMPIRE EXHIBITION. Sydney, May 3. Travel as a means of education is very largely neglected in Australia, although its broadening influence would be of vast benefit to the rising generation of young Australians and to the Commonwealth generally. Under a scheme elaborated ny the head of the British Empire Exhibition Mission, Mr. Belcher, at present in Sydney, a number of Australian youths will, however, be given an opportunity of seeing the land of their fathers and mothers. Mr. Belcher believes that a closer association between the peoples of the various parts of the Empire will be of ultimate and lasting benefit to the whole of the Empire, and he therefore suggests that the holding of the great exhibition in England in 1024 will furnish an admirable opportunity for enabling a number of Australian youths to obtain a knowledge of the Motherland and an education which will better fit them to take their part in the future government and development of the Commonwealth. The proposal is that a certain number of picked boys between the ages of 14 and 18 years should be sent from the various Dominions to England while the exhibition is in progress, the sojourn in Britain to last for six months. If every portion of the Empire took part in the scheme, something like 2000 boys at th? most impressionable age could be sent, and the mere intermingling of those delegations would be of considerable valuein broadening the outlook of the rising generation and solidifying the bond of union between the various parts of the Empire, distributed over the seven seas. The British Government would be asked to concentrate the boys in one great Imperial camp during the summer months of 1924, and to establish subsidiary camps in different parts of the British Isles, so that, apart from a close study of the resources of the Empire at the exhibition, and a practical acquaintance with the historic memorials of London, these boys might secure firsthand knowledge of some of the great provincial and industrial centres. No difficulty is anticiapted in securing 1000 English, hosts and hostesses with boys of sismilar age, who would each entertain two Dominion friends in their English countryside homes; so that, on their return to their respective Dominions, they would have learned a great deal about the resources of the Empire, and about the widely-differing conditions of life within its confines.

Mr. Belcher considers that under a scheme of this kind, it would be possible to continue the education of the boys by arranging that they should be accompanied by a number of speciallyselected masters, drawn from every type of school, and in this way the masters also would obtain an experience which would be of advantage to education generally. The boys -would be selected from every type of school in the country, and would be of British parentage. Moreover, they would be boys’ who had never before visited England. No doubt in some cases the expenses of individual boys would be borne by their parents, but there must be no class distinction, and the poorest would have equal opportunities with the wealthiest.

No difficulty is anticipated in arranging for the expenses of a mission of the kind, with the aid of the various Governments and of the Commonwealtn Shipping Line, which would be able to make special arrangements for transport. Mr. Belcher is confident that in Australia there can be found men of public spirit who would willingly contribute generously to the cost of such a project, and he expresses the hope that a move will be made at an early date to give effect to the proposal.