TRAINING SOCIETY TO THINK

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 274, 22 September 1944, Page 14

TRAINING SOCIETY TO THINK

The Function of Universities After The War

From’ a talk by DR.

H. N.

BRAILSFORD

in the "World

Perspective" series of the BBC

IFE has its dangers and discomforts in war-time London, but it also has its compensations. One of them is that we have the chance to get to know our guests and Allies, the soldiers of so many nations. I’ve been fortunate in making several good friends among the Americans, There are three in particular whom I met at a concert. We discovered that we had the same tastes in music, and before very long our house became their home. Just now we're discussing what they'll do when they’re demobilised. Should they go. home to the States or should they stay and continue their studies in Europe — perhaps in England, perhaps in France, or best of all in both? I’ve been learning with envy what an enlightened policy the government of the United States is adopting to further the education of its soldiers. There as elsewhere the call to service dragged many a student away from his university or technical college before his studies were finished. These young men ate to be compensated after the war under a scheme that promises two years’ free education to everyone whose studies

were interrupted. There will be a grant which should cover fees comfortably and a monthly allowance that will suffice with economy to meet the cost of living. Australian And New Zealand Schemes This then set me asking the wider question. What will be the future of the world’s universities after the war? The prospects in Australia and New Zealand compare very well with what Americans are planning. In both Dominions a man when he is demobilised may complete his education free at any government school or college-anything from a university to an experimental farm. In New Zealand full-time students may claim an income up to five guineas a week. The Australian scheme is on very similar lines. It takes into account in assigning men to various types of training the demand for new recruits that’s likely to

prevail in the various crafts and professions. It includes a kindly provision for the widows of deceased servicemen. They too will be eligible for training and education. That’s the happier side of this service. It has in some countries a grimmer aspect. In some of the lands they conquered the Germans deliberately aimed at destroying education. That is especially so in Poland. Education was a luxury to which this "sub-human race" had no right. The guiding principle in the long reign of terror was as far as possible to blot out everyone possible of leadership; the intellectuals, teachers and professional men. In Kharkov University a big proportion of the professors were murdered by the Gestapo. After that. we learn without surprise that university libraries were looted or, as at Naples, deliberately set on fire. With a little (continued on’ next page)

(continued from previous page) friendly organisation we who haven't suffered in this way should be able to supply books and scientific instruments for those who have lost them, but we can’t bring the dead scholars back to life. It’s obvious, of course, that where university buildings were destroyed in the overrunning of Europe the enemy ought to make-the damage good. Was Education Responsible for Hitler? I'm taking much of this from a remarkable report on university education after the war which: the British Association for the Advancement of Science has just published. It’s full of suggestions that deserve attention, Throughout this report stress is laid on the need for a humane education: specialisation often comes much too early in a young man’s studies and it happens far too often that while he knows all there is to know about beetles or radio activity or collodial compounds, he’s wholly ignorant of human history and has no integrated outlook on life at all. In short for all his learning he isn’t an educated man. I’ve been wondering whether our modern system of education is in any degree to blame for the spread ‘of Fascism in Europe.-I don’t want to overemphasise this suggestion. It was the slump that gave Hitler his chance in Germany; and once in power he kept his hold over the masses by his success in curing unemployment. Nor do I suggest that he used terror all the time. But his positive weapon was propaganda, which played on every weakness of the human mind and the human heart. I used to ask myself whenever I listened to it how could an educated man-how could any sane man---endure it? Well, they did, and that was in Germany, which used to stand -for most of us as the best- educated country in Europe. I wonder was it? Perhaps its scientists and technicians were merely specialists who had never learnt to think. However that may be I’m sure of this — that lazy and untrained minds are unworthy of democracy. "Science For All" Freedom isn’t an easy way of life. It’s workable only in the society which enjoys economic health; but equally it’s. workable only in a society which has trained itself to think. And so I applaud the guiding ideas in this report. It propoges that everyone who goes to college should spend ‘two years on a comprehensive course which it calls "Science for alJ.". By this it means nothing less than a general survey of all that science has done for mankind. It includes biology and the theory of evolution as well as astronomy and physics. It finds room for some study of primitive cultures and religions; it then moves on to psychology and the study of man’s behaviour in society. It starts with mathematics, and ends by facing the question, In what sense is man a spiritual being? Well if every university all around the earth had a discipline of this sort for all its students, whether they’re going to be doctors or engineers, teachers or preachers, I believe that our chances of reaching civilisation and achieving democracy would be brighter than they are to-day. * One Amendment There’s one amendment I’d like to make in this scheme. I think we should keep this ideal of science for all in front (continued on next page)

of us in planning all our education. We should all of us enjoy this course not once but several times. Once on a level suited to children, again on a platform which adolescents can reach before they leave school, and finally at the university level. How many of us are likely in the post-war world to enjoy what the universities have to give us? It’s a pas‘sionate belief of mine that it should be normal and usual for all of us, including those who mean to be farmers or

UNIVERSITIES

AFTER THE WAR (continued from previous page)

miners or carpenters or housewives, to have access to a university, for two or three years if we have a love of learning. This report is for opening the doors of our universities wider. Its authors evidently felt that we’re starving them. The annual grants they get in this country from government and.local authorities amount only to about £3,000,000. The report pleads for twice that sum. It asks in addition for a capital sum of £25,000,000 with which to equip and rebuild educational institutions. Few of us realise how backward and niggardly we are in this matter compared with some other countries. America, with three times our population, spends 15 times as much as we do on our universities. She is giving between the years of 18 and 21 whole-time education to 14 per cent of her young people. Our figure is mot quite 1 per cent. You may ask me whether our scientists in their plans for the post-war university are aware of its duty to mankind. We are lost unless the next generation can learn in its schools and universities how we are to live at peace and form a harmonious world-wide society of peoples. The report, I’m happy to say, gave a good deal of its space to discussing ‘how the international exchange of students and teachers should be organised and financed, Other Countries It’s good that such exchanges are no longer uncommon’ between English and American universities. But aren’t we neglecting France, and still more, Russia? The report, I’m glad to see, mentions India and China, It’s the custom with hundreds of Indian and Chinese students to study in western universities. I want to see the tide flowing in the other direction also. I believe that if we had sent, say, 20 young Englishmen every year during the past half-century, to study Indian life for a year as students in an Indian university, we should have broken down the. barrier between east and west long ago. Is it too late to begin? You will find in this report some good suggestions for the creation of an international council of universities. We must have under the new world authority a cultural department that will concern itself not merely with education, but with broadcasting and with research on the international scale. May I go a step further? I want to see the creation of at least one international university founded and financed by the united nations for the common good. It should devote itself chiefly if not entirely to the studies and sciences which have a bearing on the art of living together in society-psychology, economics, history, law, anthropology, ethics. Teachers and students alike should be drawn frém all the races of mankind. (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) Two aims should guide such a university. In the first place it would focus our thinking about this difficult adventure of living together. Out of that might emerge a living international faith. Secondly, I think we might train here, as we could train it nowhere else, the international civil service of the future. Men and women who study together and play together in their youth should find it easy in middle life to work together.