LIGHTNING-FLASHES.

White Ribbon, Volume 24, Issue 277, 18 July 1918, Page 6

LIGHTNING-FLASHES.

It pays to pay for biains. •» * * It is not much good saving bread and wasting brains. * « « The machinery of the modern State is its democracy. « * * The foundation of democracy is education. « * *. Reason i« always on th» side of right. * * * Society is based not on science but on conscience. # # # We are deciding the future quality of our manhood. « « * The world moves foiward on the feet of little children. « • « What we ought to go for most is giving the children a chance. # * * The sleeping mind of the child is the raw material of the good citizen. * # * As we teach our children to think, so they will be. # # * The child has the right to be lighted by all the rays that come from every side of the horizon. « « * Education should give to every child in the State a passport to the highest honours of the State. * * * Every child should have the same opportunities for education as may be enjoyed by the child of the rich. * * * Education means future efficiency in the business of the nation, and evolution in politics instead of revolution. ■» •# * Educational reconstruction will be an essential part of the scheme of social reconstruction after the war. . . To those declaring that industry needs an abundant supply of cheap juvenile labour, we answer: “Hands off the children.” * # # I don’t know what lesson you have learned from the war. I have learned that id°as rule the world for good or ev 1 to a greater degree than industrial success.

We are only just beginning to realise that the capital of the country does not consist in cash or paper, but in the brains and bodies of the people. ■* * # Nearly all our social problems can be traced back to ignorance. * * * Men at their birth aie naturally good ; but if, foolishly, there is no teaching, the nation will deteriorate. * * * The future demands education. We must prepare to supply that demand. * # # Education is the factor which should enable us to live in constant harmony with our oflter and inner self. * * * A complete and generous education fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war. * * # It is impossible to over estimate the responsibility lying upon the teacher. No man or woman is too good for the work. # * # It is not uncommon to find women teaching (>o, 70 or So children—a serious wrong to teacher and pupil alike. # # * “It pays better to become a telegraph messenger than a pupil-teacher. Of 4,700 aciult teachers, over 2,000 are limited to a maximum salary of (plus £2O, house allowance for some 500 sole teac hers). * « * Teaching is not a profession, but an occupation, and it is open for anyone to teach —whether qualified or not—so great is the indifference of the Department and the community. A fireman on a ferry boat must first serve three months as a triinmc r, but there is nothing whatever to prevent him from coming ashore, should he so desire, aftn one month’s work, and taking up the teaching of your children.” ♦ * * The only remedy is more trained teachers but to train (hem we must get them, and if tlv'y are to be worth training, they must be of the best quality. The market value of youthful brains is rising, and “it pays to pay for brains.” * # * “After the war, is a problem which is exercising the minds of all the thinkers in the world. One thing is a

certainty, and that is that Education w ill play a very great part in the readjustment. . . . Education is a vital necessity, and education needs no makeshifts, anc' yei our school buildings and equipments are one huge makeshift. What are the j>eople of New Zealand going to do about it? * * * We know that the State’s supreme n p cd is good citizens; we know that training is essential to good citizenship; we know that the rivalries of the future will be more and more the rivalries of education. Knowing these things, can we say it is rational to look for intelligent citizens among children whose education ceases at fourteen years of age ? * * « It is possible to be met with the remark that the country could not afford to pay more. The fact is, the country can not afford not to pay more Money is available for the reforms asked for, and would be forth- % coming if the Government were pressed. The Minister will not get the money necessary unless the people demand it. # # * All this will cost money. So it will; but the neglect of it will cost the waste of many lives, will cost the loss of the products of many brilliant brains; will cost the stunting of moral growth, and the undermining of social stamina; will cost social disturbances, and the instability of the public mind that waits ujxm ignorance; will almost certainly cost the breakdown of the liberty that our ancestors fought for and won. What monetary cost is worth weighing against such other costs as these? * * « Vigorous bodies controlled by trained and cultivated brains will produce more real wealth than all the bankers and gold-miners ever dreamed of. # * * The watchword for to-da> is pare.” The epitaph of to-morrow may S? “Too late.” We have been lagging behind other nations in our svst ni of Education.