Fundamental or Practical?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 740, 18 September 1953, Page 10

Fundamental or Practical?

¢¢ ORTHY" is, I think, the word for the Unesco programme Experiment in Mexico (from 1YA). It was a record of fine and immensely necessary work, carried out by enthusiasts who (as the final comment pointed out) work on a microscopically small budget. Yet the whole tone of it was smug and vaguely irritating. The very title of "Fundamental Education of Backward Peoples" is condescending and misleading: for it is arguable whether a training in the necessary rudiments of public health, industrial techniques and modern commerce can be considered fundamental, though it is certainly practical. And it seemed to be overlooked that the "backward people" had a way of life which, however poverty-stricken, was at least their own: one would have liked to hear more about the great effort of adaptation which it must cost them to catch up with the 20th Century, I hasten to add that the general tone of the programme -that of brisk young executive plus Fitzgerald travelogue — did not appear to reflect the attitude of the Unesco people themselves. When they spoke of the need for "humility" and "affection," one began to understand why such things work.