EDUCATION CRANKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 September 1939, Page 9

EDUCATION CRANKS

OBSERVATIONS BY ENGLISH HEADMASTER. “I tilt at phantasies of the ‘new education,’ ” said an English headmaster, the Rev. N. V. Gorton, in a recent broadcast talk. “There is a cracked formula which suggests that children should be allowed free choice of all lessons and activities. The burden of choice is a strain the adult would find intolerable, the child devastating. There is a cliche that all discipline worth having is self-imposed. We are training children for life where 90 per cent of discipline is externally imposed. The evidence of the Saints is that the discipline of most value is that which is accepted from without. It is dangerous to discard traditional wisdom under the influence of bright ideas. One of the chief values of school, as of home, is routine, the precise comfort of the clock, the moment you can rely upon—and the person. Within that two things: One, the discipline of hard work, grind and detail. We criticise examinations, but in themselves they reproduce the exacting external discipline of life, they .save- us from .the whims of the crank who might suggest that education for life consists either in doing what we like or what he likes. But secondly, man is not only a technician and a creature of routine; essentially within that he is a creative being. On the creative and emotional side I distrust the merely passive outlet, appreciation in art, music and poetry. Your danger is little Bloomsbury highbrows, all criticism and sensibilities. Hugging your own and other peoples’ emotions and criticising gets you nowhere. They should, make things—music, honest carpentry. It has design if it is honest. It is natural to carve in stone or wood and work in the round.”