MODERN LANGUAGES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 December 1938, Page 2

MODERN LANGUAGES

I LAYING TRUE FOUNDATIONS OF PEACE. The true foundations of peace, says the Times Educational Supplement, can only be well and truly laid if there is understanding between the nations of the world, if artificial barriers are cast down and a spirit of mutual goodwill is fostered. True sympathy will grow if people can meet face to face and exchange ideas. In Britain we are notoriously insular. More than in any other country of Europe, even men and women who have enjoyed the benefits of higher education, do not speak any language but their own. We show ourselves willing to let pupils drop the study of languages even in the secondary schools and in our primary schools. Other local authorities might well follow the example of London in giving scholarships to pupils of secondary schools to enable them to spend a term abroad. An extension of travelling scholarships would no doubt stir up a larger number of students in the training colleges to qualify themselves to teach modern languages, if they were sure that their services would be required. Proficiency in speaking and writing is not the only or even the main goal to aim at. Some familiarity with a modern language leads naturally to interest in world affairs. Provided that interest has been aroused there will be eagerness .to learn more, if only to “get foreign stations” on the wireless and catch some echo of how our own doings strike the friendly observer abroad, or the uses to which some foreign propagandist, not so friendly, may be putting our indiscretions.