PUBLIC INTEREST IN EDUCATION. 781 



In conclusion, it was urged that care should be taken to 

 make the connection of our training college as close and sympathetic 

 as possible with our university, of which our training-college students 

 must form an integral part in all phases of its social, physical, 

 and intellectual life. We must avoid, as far as possible, the years of 

 apathy towards elementary education and its teachers through which 

 other Australian universities in their early stages have passed. Hery 

 our university must from the outset have the roots of its influence 

 planted, through the primary teachers, right down in the lowest 

 primaiy schools. By this means the full power of our university 

 work would be of highest excellence, for the university would be 

 constantly fed with our best native-born intelligence, and the whole 

 State would also be best brought under the influence of its quickening 

 enero-ies. 



10.— PUBLIC INTEREST IN EDUCATION. 



By J. DJ:NX1.S, M.A.. Iiix/icc/or of Schools, N.SM'. 



Among all the subjects that come before this Congress, education 

 is pre-eminently a people's question. Some of the others may safely 

 be left to experts. Engineering, botany, chemistiy, mathematics, and 

 the rest no doubt concern the people, inasmuch as it is they who 

 ultimately enjoy the benefits of any discoveries that may be made 

 in these sciences. But in the case of education the people do not 

 merely reap a hai-vest which has been sown by a few, they must 

 themselves take an active share in the process of cultivation ; and. 

 this they must do as individuals as well as in their collective capacity 

 through the State. For a child is educated not merely by the lessons 

 he learns at school, but by everything he sees and hears and does ; 

 in the home and in the street, in working and playing, just as surely- 

 as in learning, his mind and character are being formed; all the 

 persons he meets have, consciously or unconsciously, a share in his 

 education; so that every individual in the community is, willy-nilly, 

 an educator, good, bad, or indifferent. 



In this respect education bears some resemblance to hygiene. 

 It is for men of science to investigate the laws of health, and for the 

 State, by legislation and administrative action, to apply them ; but, 

 while much good may be accomplished by these means, it is not till 

 the people themselves, as individuals, take an intelligent interest in 

 hygiene and follow its teachings in their own personal and domestic 

 habits that the best results can be achieved. If the people themselves 

 must thus work out their own physical salvation, it is even more 

 necessary that they should take an active personal part in achieving 

 their mental and moral well-being by means of education. 



Experts may investigate the laws of mind, the principles of 

 education, and the methods of teaching; the State may establish 

 schools and train teachers, but the children can never be fully 

 educated without the active co-operation of the people in their daily 

 lives. Let us inquire to what degree the people recognise and fulfil 

 the obligation which thus rests upon them. 



In their corporate capacity through the State they have done 

 much foi- education, more than most men a century ago ever dreamed 



