EDUCATION FOR THE WORLD
Sir,-Your "admirable editorial under the above heading mentions the possibility of Unesco coming into "collision with national and private interests."
These interests may quite sincerely oppose some Unesco aim because they are comprised of people born and bred during the currency of the conception of: a divinely constructed stable world and the tradition that we must seek selfinterest first. Through the painful and long-drawn-out process of destructive recurring wars the Western nations are learning that a system which fails to satisfy the individual’s craving for a sense of social worth must. be changed for a co-operative effort on a world scale organised to use modern scientific and technological resources to give mankind as a whole the economic and political conditions favouring the full development of individual capacities. One of the possible hidden obstacles to which you refer may be that a survival of the old conception will lead to those now regarded as "backward" people, ‘striving to follow the unwise path trodden by the Western nations in the past, and that a new phase of competitive rivalries, strife and war may mark their advance towards our present stage. That would be tragic, but not impossible, for a study of evolution reveals that trends accumulate, stability is broken down, again and again until some new order finally establishes itself. Unésco’s aim, I think, is to try to avoid a repetition of our melancholy’ history of politico-economic error with its disastrous consequences, by giving to all the peoples a realisation of what a new productive organisation, based on human co-operation and motivated by the aim of the common good instead of individual and national aggrandisement may do for mankind. This is necessarily a long job, and as you say, may call for patience. But in due time oaks grow from acorns, and the more we know about our world and ourselves, the more willing we become to abandon attractive penny-in-the-slot schemes and trust in seedtime and harvest.
J. MALTON
MURRAY
(Oamaru).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 546, 9 December 1949, Page 5
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333EDUCATION FOR THE WORLD New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 546, 9 December 1949, Page 5
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