Education – for What?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 444, 26 December 1947, Page 15

Education – for What?

READING, FILM AND RADIO TASTES OF HIGH SCHOOL BOYS AND GIRLS. By W. J. Scott. New Zealand Council for Educational Research.

(Reviewed by

A. R. D.

Fairburn

HIS is the record of a survey made in 19 high schools, among nearly 4,000 pupils. The object was "to discover the out-of-school cultural interests of the post-primary school boys and girls of New Zealand." It was felt by the Council for Educational Research that "a knowledge of the books, magazines, newspapers, films, and radio items that they voluntarily choose to fill their leisure hours is indispensable if the task of teaching English, and particularly English literature, is to be well done." Mr. Scott has done his job very well indeed. He has sifted the replies to questionnaires thoroughly, and has made many interesting deductions. No teacher of English will fail to read this book if he takes his work seriously. It will be a pity, however, if the book is read only by English teachers. For here, without doubt, is a social document of the highest importance, which deserves most careful study by the politician, the parent, the churchman and the sociologist. Mr. Scott writes with proper restraint, and takes a level view of things; but in the course of his 200 pages he manages to map out most of the bogs, ditches, cliffs and desert patches in our cultural life. I hope no prospective reader of the book will be misled into thinking, from its title, that this is just another dull educational report, of interest only to specialists. Although the study deals with children, it might well be read as a report on the general condition of culture in New Zealand. The writing is incisive, with touches of pleasantly subtle irony. No foul blows are given, and no punches are pulled. Mr. Scott insists, rightly, on the need for maintaining standards of judgment if we are not to drift further into chaos. He understands fully what is implied in this. Some will accuse him of being puritanical when he condemns shockers. I must, confess that I have not yet sorted out this question to my own satisfaction. It seems to me to be better to allow children to read Sexton Blake, on the understanding that it is not literature, than to give them such a flabby piece of writing as, say, Longfellow’s Hiawatha and let them think it represents a high level of achievement. The reading of shockers by adults is a means of escape from suburban boredom, and I think it can be profitably discussed only in that context. If we’ insist on making a chromium-plated desert of our community life, we must have drugs to relieve the mental strain. The remedy lies in the field of religion and sociology rather than in that of literature. There is, I think, a tendency for the life of the ordinary man and woman to become more and more meaningless as our secular culture extends its barren dominion, and as organic principles and notions of value give place to "scientific" measurement of all things. Im such circumstances the reader, the film fan and the radio: listener look increasingly, not for meaning (which evaporates), but for sensation. I think that this attitude, which is evidence of cultural. recidivism in

adults, may be more’or less natural in young children-and perhaps still, to some extent, in high school children. The B.O.F. stories and the Union Jack Library paper-backs of my youth were, as I recall them, merely stimulants to my imagination. But I can’t help thinking, with Mr. Scott, that standards have deteriorated even in this field. I have seen "comics" and films that are so full of the crudest sadism that it is difficult to imagine the state of mind of those who produce them and those who enjoy them. The most important thing is, not that we should avoid the bad, but that we should maintain distinctions between good and bad, between the fruitful and the déstructive. If an adult reads a shocker, the thing: of greatest moment is that he shall not comfuse it with literature, even if the detective has been to Oxford. It is the second-best, not the worst, that is the deadly enemy of the best. One of our difficulties is that things that are barren and unfruitful can disguise themselves very easily. ‘"To most people," says Mr. Scott, "a highbrow is either’ a person with queer abnormal tastes, or a humbug. ." I fear that some of the highbrows themselves are just as much to blame for this state of affairs as are the ignorant and the half-educated. The preciousness and perversity, and the downright inanition, of a great deal of fashionable highbrow writing during the past 30 years or so has encouraged many people who are not Philistines to ask whether any good thing can come out of Bloomsbury. In a period when Philistinism is general it is unfortunate that a more robust spirit has not been evident in English letters. (When I say that) of course, I shall be suspected of praising the poems of Sir Henry Newbolt and Priestley’s Good Companions. I mean, rather, that Virginia Woolf was incapable of writing anything with as much spirit as the Brontes’ novels; that Huxley, however entertaining he may be, is a poor substitution for Fielding or even Hardy; and that poetry during the period in question has been dominated by epicene young gentlemen of great talent.) ws Eo AVING read everything that Mr. Scott says about shockers and bloods, I cannot agree that he is really puritanical. He makes many distinctions, (continued on next page)

COMMERCE AND CULTURE

(continued from previous page) and discusses the whole subject with commendable realism and detachment. Wisely, he is not in favour of any straight-out ban on bloods and poor literature generally. "It is debatable," he says mildly, "whether the adult’s habit of reading thrillers or the child’s habit of reading bloods is really harmless," but he admits that "the problem requires more careful analysis than it seems to have yet received." He is temperate, and his case is well-argued. Its real strength appears when he deals with the commercial background of the popular culture of to-day: The hope entertained by the apostles of an educated democracy when universal education was introduced was that: the richest fruits of English and European culture, hitherto enjoyed by the privileged few, would be eagerly seized and assimilated by all classes of the people, There has undoubtedly been some diffusion; the works of the masters in music, art, and literature have been made available in various ways to the people, some of whom have made full use of the opportunity of enjoying them, But the practice of "giving the public what it wants," initiated by Northcliffe in his Daily Mail in 1896, and by film magnates, has tended to create a mass taste at a level very much below the best, and to make the public want, and be satisfied with, what it is given. . . . It can be said, in fact, that a vast urban culture is in process of formation, superseding on the one hand the aristocratic one which produced Shakespeare and even Shaw, and on the other the rural one largely destroyed by industrialisation. * * * The distinction here is, I think, not a real one; as H. M. Massingham shows in his essay William Shakespeare of Warwickshire, Shakespeare was firmly rooted in the rural tradition, But the main point stands. The Culture of today is flattening out into mediocrity all the time. "Kor this,’ says Mr. Scott, "the heavy downward pressure of our commercialised culture which depends for its financial success om mass support is largely responsible." He suggests elsewhere that popular taste "may be to some extent an artificial thing, created not by giving the public what it wants, but by skilfully making it ‘want what it is given." Although there is much truth in this I think the public must bear its full share of the blame, Another important point he makesone that will not have escaped the notice of the alert radio listener-is that nowadays "the popular culture has to a large extent ironed out the distinction between what is for the adult and what is for the child, and produced books, films, magazines and radio items that deeply interest both at once." The’ belief held by some psychologists — that most- people are mentally about 12 years old is accepted in practice by most of the purveyors of mass-entertainment. The trouble is that this sort of stuff can be turned out in such quantities with modern machinery that it tends to smother everything better than itself by its sheer bulk and weight. me Ea * R. SCOTT puts his finger on what is perhaps the central problem when he says of the means of mass-entertain-ment: Most of them are pd 6 prising men a who Pie covered that it is very ¥ to cul. ture to the masses, have invested immense sums of money in the extensive concerns manufacture and distribute it. This

commercialisation and mass production of culture is comparatively new in our history, in its most powerful forms and methods not yet more then 30 years old. It has developed side by side with the mass education undertaken by the State-naturally enough, since both are inevitable results of industrialisation. The situation then is that the State, in the official sense; educates the masses, the producer entertains them. Agreed. The implications of that situation have not yet been faced. In New Zealand the position is even more complicated, for the State itself has entered the mass-entertainment business; and although we have set up a National Orchestra, a large proportion of our expenditure on broadcasting must be considered, in cultural terms, as a debit item to set against the eight million pounds we spend on education. In a word, the State is driving its educational vehicle with the brakes half on. There is one possible implication of all this that Mr. Scott does not discuss. If the chief effect of universal education has been to provide a rich field for the commercial culture-monger and the propagandist to work; and if the fixed I.Q. of each individual sets a limit to his ability to make use of imparted knowledge; then we may very easily be driven to the unpalatable conclusion that the whole attempt to provide universal education beyond a certain point is mistaken-a piece of political sentimentality. Is it possible that in providing the "benefits" of education to certain people who are incapable, through lack of mental capacity or lack of character, of using them with judgment, we are doing something analogous to handing out large supplies of brandy to South Sea islanders? It is outrageous to ask that question, of course. But I am afraid it will force,itself on our attention before we are finished. Most University teachers would agree, I think, that their classes gre too big and that many of their students have no right to be taking courses. It all depends, needless to say, on what sort of education is in question. Universal education of a certain kind is indispensable. I have the impression that our educational policy at the present time is working towards a more realistic approach to the general. problem with which it is faced. So far as I can judge, education at the junior levels is being treated more as a sort of general social "conditioning" than as, in the past, a specific preparation for advanced studies that are in most cases not, and in some cases wrongly, undertaken, There seems to be much more emphasis on individual self-development according to temperament and capability; on physical education; on aesthetic training through "free expression" in art; and on training in the use of the hands. All this represents a healthy trend, but it has not yet gone far. I think that as time passes we shall be compelled to redefine most of our educational ideas and practices in the realistic light of individual human needs and capabilities. Nobody, reading Mr, Scott’s report on’ the results of universal education, could feel complacent about the principles and methods we have used in the past. Perhaps we may eventually arrive at a notion of universal education as a system that concerns itself, in the main, with self-development and social adjust-’ fment. The "higher education," in any of its forms, would then be regarded as (continued'on next page)

(continued from previous page) specialised training for those who showed a capacity for using it fruitfully. Even then there is the danger of too much standardisation, if the system hardens into rigidity. We must not reach the condition in which the goal of education is to provide the ideal tenant for the State house. I think we are up against a fundamental difficulty, in that a secular system of universal education can go only a certain distance in pursuing its true endthe inculcation of a sense of values. But we are justified in going as far as we can. I see no purpose in teaching children English literature unless we have first established in their minds some awareness of the true context of literature; otherwise we shall spend millions of money in producing digest-readers, subscribers to commercial libraries, and students of comic strips. It is assumed nowadays-so hallowed is the very name of "education"-that any sort of reading is a useful and virtuous activity. It is not sufficiently realised that for most people reading is a minor vice. For some of these it is equivalent to taking soporific drugs; for others, no better than biting the finger-nails. * % * LIKE Mr. Scott’s keenness of judgment when he is dealing with matters of detail. His reasons for disliking some of Barrie’s plays are, for me, just the right reasons. His discussion of digest reading is brief, restrained, and dead on the bull. "Digests are a logical fruit of an urban machine-age culture .. . etc." When he advocates "a breaking-down of the larger schools into smaller units with a closer sense of community" as a necessary measure he shows, I think, a keen perception of realities. Again, his remarks on the effects of radio, cinema and comic-strip "pottings" of classical novels are very much to the point. Here is a sentence that should bring a@ warm response: "It is almost certain that the tendency to restrict poetry to the elevated and uplifting kind, and to introduce it to the pupils before they are mature enough to enjoy it, has been partly responsible for the distaste felt for it by many of them." Again: "Because it is such an intensely emotional art, it is important that pupils should not be asked to read and study any poetry that expresses emotions too mature for them to understand." This remark about the Press goes right to the point! "It is, I think, fair to say that, by committing itself to a defence of a materialistic, business conservatism, it has greatly weakened its power to defend the more genuine conservatism that seeks to preserve the tested ethical, social, and cultural standards of the past.’’ That is a shrewd blow. Many people imagine they can dispose of the press by describing it as being "conservative." Mr. Scott makes the right and telling distinction. One fing that astonishes me when I look at Mr., Scott’s list of the most popular books among boys and girls is the fact that, with only one or two exceptions, the authors they read are the same as those we were reading 30 years ago-Stevenson, Ballantyne, Defoe, Conan Doyle, Orezy, Dumas, Kingsley, Marryat, and so on. Hardly anything seems to have been written for boys and girls in recent decades that can compete with the older books. I am not

sure just what may be inferred from this. I am inclined to take it as further evidence for the belief that, half-way through the 20th Century, we are still, at heart, living in the 19th. Mr. Scott finishes up his book with a question from the Harvard Report on the Training of English Teachers: "To the extent that the nation is ignorant of its literary heritage, it is ethically ignorant." Earlier, near the beginning, he has this to say: "On the whole, the pressure of contemporary popular culture will probably lead to a decline in the amount of reading of the classics by individual boys and girls as they become adults. It is not likely that people

who become responsive to the films, the magazines, the best-sellers in fiction, and the radio serials of the day, will for long maintain their taste, if they now have it, for books whose appeal is so differently based. When we add those two statements together we get something that is not pleasant to contemplate. But it is probably true enough. I have written at length about Mr. Scott’s book with the object of trying to persuade readers of The Listener to get hold of it for themselves. It is, I think, one of the most important contributions to the documentation of New Zealand that we have seen for some time.