MISSIONARY EDUCATIONIST

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 228, 5 November 1943, Page 7

MISSIONARY EDUCATIONIST

HIGHER EDUCATION AND ITS FUTURE. By A. E. Campbell. Studies in Education, No. 8. New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Printed by Whitcombe and Tombs. ‘THE Twentieth Century may some day be regarded much as the Renaissance Period has been in the pastas a great age in educational development. New _ schools, new teachers, new methods of teaching, and a New Learning changed Europe in the Fifteenth Century more profoundly than anything since the Barbarian invasions, To-day educationists are trying to change the world again,. but they find themselves facing the fact that Latin and Greek are still as much the hall-mark of a good education as were a knowledge of dialectic and the Christian Fathers to the late Mediaevalist. The achievement of the Renaissance was to bring learning from the cloisters to the houses of the wealthier members of the community. The aim to-day is to bring education from the preserves of ‘the well-to-do within the reach of all who can profit by it.

Primary schooling of some sort is now the privilege or the lot of all children in New Zealand. Secondary education is within the reach of nearly all. A generous bursary .system has also made University or higher education available to a very large proportion of the population. But, as A. E. Campbell explains in his all-too-brief pamphlet, this in itself constitutes a problem. The 1925 Royal Commission reported that "the New Zealand University offers unrivalled facilities for gaining university degrees, but is less successful in providing University education." Since 1925, measures have been taken to check this evil, and a good deal of Mr. Campbell’s space is devoted to suggestions for converting negative checks into positive aids to progress. With the aid of graphs and diagrams showing trends in student enrolments, courses taken, distribution of courses taken, and so on, he reveals the problem clearly enough, but the limited scope of his booklet does not allow for more than a few suggestions by way of interpretation and explanation. What he does say, however, he says clearly and well with the breadth of view of a scholar and some of the intensity of purpose of a missionary educationist. But it is a hard fate to be a missionary and to be forbidden te carry sufficient luggage.

Christmas Serial for Children NEW radio programme for children (and probably for parents) starts on Tuesday, November 9, at 4.45 p.m. from Station 4ZB. It will be heard on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The programme is entitled Santa’s Magic Christmas Tree and heralds the coming of Christmas. Instead of containing the blood-curdling scenes found in many children’s serials, this programme is woven around the exploits of Santa Claus, Billie and Babs, Gee Willikins, a gnome who is Santa’s right-hand helper, a Wicked Wizard (really a comic villain) and many other Christmas characters, during a visit by Billie and Babs to Santa Claus’s Magic Christmas Tree, at the top of the North Pole. Many original songs have been written for the serial. Some of them are "Santa’s Magic Christmas Tree," "Bang, Bang, Bang!" "The Song of the Chocolateers," "Happy Dan, the Elevator Man," "Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas," and "Don’t Forget to Write." This series will be heard later from 3ZB and 2ZB.