Into the World

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 495, 17 December 1948, Page 5

Into the World

T is a humiliating thought that animals and savages can find ~~ their way where civilised man loses himself. Civilised man has never given up asking himself what is good for his children. If he knew the answer he would not know beyond: question how to apply it. But savages know, and animals know, and there is never any conflict between their instincts ‘and their methods. They rear other savages and other animals equipped at every point for the life they themselves have led. Civilised. man, has never been able to do that. It is sufficient to listen about this time every year to school break-up speeches to realise how bewildered most parents are, and how little confidence even teachers have that they are following the right track. When these speeches are more than mere pleasantries they are usually cloudy and contradictory, not because the speakers are dull and ignorant, but because they are attempting more than anybody has the ability to bring off. We are especially confused in New Zealand at the present time because one system of education has been pulled up by the roots and another has nov had time to establish itself. But only the dull and lazy among us have ever been satisfied with the work of our schools. Those who -are loudest in condemnation of the new education have forgotten ‘that it is the answer to the blund‘ers and evils of the old education, and that they were not silent about those either. Nor do those who support the new methods support them without qualification. They know that children are happier at school to-day than they used to be, and therefore healthier; that the syllabus is more flexible and comprehensive and the use made of it more rational. But they know that what education has gained in humanity and commonsense it has paid for in slackness. Though pupils are no longer afraid of their teachers they are afraid of their préblems, go ' round instead of over their hurdles, or turn aside and go somewhere else. The sav--age who does that has a lean, and often a short, life.