PRODUCE THINKERS

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20987, 14 December 1939, Page 11

PRODUCE THINKERS

EDUCATION AND LIFE TRENDS OF PRESENT DAY RHODES SCHOLAR’S OPINIONS The purpose of education in preparing youth for life and to teach man to be a broad thinker, was stressed by Mr S. N. Ziman, of Hamilton, a 1908 New Zealand Rhodes Scholar, when speaking at the annual prize-giving ceremony of the Hamilton Technical College yesterday afternoon. Mr Ziman later presented the prizes. Owing to the complications of civilisation and the infinite variety of knowledge in the modern world it was necessary that there should be specialisation by schools and in schools, said the speaker. A careful watch would have to be exercised, however, to see that specialisation was not permitted to extend too far. Education Is Indivisible “We need technical schools and ordinary secondary schools but they must not be divided by a brick wall,” added Mr Ziman. “Education is indivisible and its main purpose must always be to fit the children for the future. It is particularly necessary that a broad basis should be taken for the foundations of education.”

Mr Ziman expressed the opinion that the world most required people who were skilled at their work and also keen to work and keen to think. Preparation for life was accomplished at school and the main purpose of education, he thought, was to teach people to think. As a result the majority o£ school tuition should be devoted to preparation for the hours spent in living, which were much longer than school hours. “The best citizen in the country at the present time,” Mr Ziman said,

“is the skilled tradesman who can read and think—the worker and the thinker. They should be the citizens it should be the aim of every school to produce.”