Editorial.

At present there is so much to talk about in the world that one hardly knows where to begin, or rather, where one will end. To follow our own inclination, we would not begin at all, but having evaded our responsibilities once already, we feel that we cannot do so a second time gracefully, and therefore have called to our aid another's wisdom. Fortunately, there are still folk in the Old World with time for writing, and some of us in this quiet land have time for reading; the former clear their minds and the latter fill theirs, and sometimes, as in our case, a little spills over, and in the gathering up, there may be grains of gold. Notice we say may be.

"Tot hominess, quot sententiae," and never surely has this been more truly evinced than now-a-days with its eager outcries over a thousand "burning questions," and ten thousand wild rumours. Very roughly, people may be divided into two classes—those whose outlook is the present or the very page 10 near future, the "win the war" party (although half are obstructing the other half on the subject of ways and means); and those who look into the future, and see and worry over the post-war problems. The second class is the minority—the heretics—except for a sub class of the "win the war party." Those concerned with the commerce of the future and the anti-German trade policy.

In England, that land where the widest and the narrowest of views flourish side by side, both classes of people are hard at work; here in this quiet land, away from the immediate noise of war, here where should flourish those careful for the future, little is being done—not only in actual work, but in ways of thinking, in preparing public opinion, in self-criticism, or in raising the country's ideals.

We say that we are a democracy. According to Mazzine's noble definition a democracy is "the progress of all through all under the leading of the best and wisest." I need say no more. Our politicians (for we have no stateman) may be "the best and wisest" available, but as leaders of to-day they are not making the way very easy for the leaders of to-morrow. The training the youth of to-day is being given seems strangely purposeless; he or she is not being trained either as a citizen or as a thinker to cope with the difficulties of the future—of those days when we shall probably be up against some "pacific" enemy, and shall want all our resources and all our intelligence to cope with him. As the Jesuits held, "Control the young mind and you thereby control the future." We wonder what kind of a future our Minister for Education envisages. What can it be when he always seems to be looking backwards instead of forwards? By handicapping further those already sufficiently handicapped; by crowding a little closer their already crowded school course; or else by omitting some subject worth while, he evidently hopes to produce an improved young New Zealand. We do not agree with these methods, and we wonder how he and A. S. Neill would agree together on the subject of education, in which both are so vitally interested. The Dominie says that "education should aim at giving a child a philosophy, and philosophy simply means the contemplation of the important things of life." But of course, there are a page 11 good many differences of opinion on what are the important things of life. In this land the educationalists do not consider it important that young New Zealanders should realise that their Dominion has a history; they foster no traditions; they leave severely alone the story of the country's colonization; the story of the noble lives lived here in "The Early Days"; the ideals and hopes that animated the pioneers. It is not important—they prefer the children to know what happened in 55 B. C., or 1066. What is important here is commercial well-being, so we must have more technical education, more "usefulness" in a monetary sense. There will be more insistence on type and less on individuality. One of the vilest things about the war will be the post-war insistence on rigid organisation and discipline, and consequent loss of liberty, and education will suffer most from this Prussianizing tendency. Education will prejudice young minds more than ever, instead of inculcating open-mindedness. An education that but emphasizes the point of view of yesterday (e. g. Mr. Hanan on Domestic Science) is utterly bad. New Zealand should prepare for the future, she should think of to-morrow. She needs "dreamers dreaming greatly" till "the power comes with the need." Till then we may be prosperous (and our prosperity, remember, breeds covetousness in others) but we shall not be great.