INAUGURAL ADDRESS BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE RT.
HON. R. G. MENZIES TO TME AUSTRALIAN COLLEGE OF
EDUCATION, ADELAHP. FRIDAY, 19TH MAY, 196,.
THE CH-, ', ENGE TO EDUCATION
It would perhaps ' e prudent to say, at the very outset,
that I am not here as the lead of a government making a policy
speech outlining new poli ies or forecasting future financial
benefits and burdens. 1 ' ave been honoured by your invitation
to make the Inaugural e at the second annual meeting of
the Australian College ucaton. That very great teacher,
Dr. Darling, wrote to me . e wo. 1d like you to speak on the
theme of Australia in th rnext t,-enty years and what you, as the
leader of the country, expect or desire from us the teachers."
This opportunity I have accepted, if I may say so,
not as one who seeks to express a Government or a party point of
view but as one who has been privileged to have something to do,
small enough in all conscience, with recent educational
advancement in Australia, something which had the support of all
parties; and as one with a profound belief in the tremendous
significance of the teacher's calling. What I have to say will
therefore be more philosophical, in the non-technical sense,
than political, in the narrow and partisan sense.
For indeed, your voluntary responsibilities are very
great. You have established this College to help you to
discharge them better and better. You have made it clear that
you look on teaching not mer,. ly as a means of earning a living
but as a vocation which will enable you to contribute to the
fullness of life,
To do anything to help or to stimulate is therefore a
singular privilege. Education and educators are beyond doubt confronting a
great challenge both material, intellectual and spiritual.
At a later stmgo I will endeavour to bring these
elements into association For the present, however, I will
speak of the material cLa challenge which is to be
heard all round the world,
It is calculated by the statisticians that in 1950
the population of the world was 2,500 million; that in 1975 it
will be 3,800 million; and that in 2000 it will be over 6,000
million! These forecasts are, of course, based on present trends
and the absence of massive catastrophe. To produce food, shelter,
clothing, and a decently ordered life for such growing myriads is
a vast problem. There is a strange irony in this reflection; that as
what is called the " space age" begins to what end and for what
human purpose most of us cannot understand tim " FRrth Age"
approaches the most acute problems it will have ever confronted.
The solving of those problems should be our first priority.
Clearly the population problem will be insoluble, and will
therefore produce the most frightful struggles for survival, with
wars and pestilences their regular accompaniment, unless the
earth's productivity is onormously increased, and/ or the rate of
population grcwhis slowed down.
If productivity is to be increased in economically
backward countries, advanced countries will need a growing sense
of international social and economic responsibility, and will,
both directly and indirectly, need to increase efficiency and
skill all round in production, transport, and distribution.
There must also be immense improvements in organization, in
political and civil administrati on, in scientific research and
in the application of th?/ roso-ech to the provision of human
needs. Not one of tho rosul. ts c;. i reasonably be achieved
by the ignorant, the unskil. ful, * r by the socially
irresponsible i. e. the lay:
In general, ppr. aching crisis presents a
dramatic challenge to . tio. : p. o who enjoy pence,
order, good government, nii u . Ii. al tr:--dards. It is a
rebuke to those who, Lc. oo. a: brd,;-s for international
assistance, remind us oi Yhat proverb, that " charity
begins at home."
But in particular -it is a challenge to us, as a
nation, to play our pa-rt in incirasing the world's resources.
And, in essence, that is a challengo to us to improve our
education; for it is only by constantly improving education
and skills that we can discharge our world duty.
Improvements in a. ricu1 trein pastures, in stock
breeding, do not come about by acr-ident. They are the products
of research, of scientific application, and of concentrated
skill. The storing and d-. stribution of water calls for
engineors, surveyors, and a host of technical people. Moreover,
much available skill will. be wasted without intelligent and
trained managers and organisers. Without increasingly educated
people and political ad: inistrators, material potentialities
may be either unrealised or partly frustrated by confusion or by
a lack of imagination. Those are obvious and elementary truths.
It should be equally obvious that without growing
numbers of trained and dedicated teachers, we cannot meet the
demand in Australia and elsewhere, for the scientific,
technological, and managerial and administrative skills demanded
by the task and the time.
Yet this does not mean that if, in the homely phrase
we could " write our own ticket", we would concentrate upon
producing technicians and specialists destined from their
earlier days to the particular technique or specialty. We would,
I hope, want to do bet-or than that. For, as I shall remind you
later on, a specialist '--Ithout some reasonable degree of basic
education of a humane kind can do more harm than good.
We must do our best to avoid early specialisation. In
an educated man or woman, specialisation will come soon enough.
It will come more effectively, valuably, if it is the
product of a judgment enli. htoen-d by broad and basic studies.
In 1959 Admiral Rickover, famous for his driving work
in nuclear propulsion, evidence before the United States
House of Reprosentati-s' Coi:. tt. oo on Appropriations. He had
some good things to say, ixhi. clhl take leave to quote for my
present purpose. " A liberal , ation tends to liberate the mind from
the narrow confines of pcrs. ona-l observation through one's
senses. " A liberal education also lays the foundation of
knowledge upon which professional education is built."
" Too many people here think of a liberal education as
a luxury, something of no inmediate usefulness. It is true
that a liberal education does not in itself prepare one
to earn a living. For this one needs in addition some
specialist skill".
3.
We know that there are difficulties, not all of them
financial, in the way of achieving this ideal, One of those
difficulties is the parent wlbo sys: ' I want i-. r son to earn his
living in a specialised and i, ,, b2. y-pad or craft. I want
no time wasted on frills. What is not cilearly and immediately
relevant to the main end is un--i.._,. rtajt. and a waste of tine".
The good teacher, who wants to help to produce not just
a good scientist or engineer, but also a good and wise citizen
will resist these basically uncivilised ideas to the very limits
of his capacity. This does not mean, of course, that all must
be educated in the same way; that there will be merit in
uniformity. If, as I hope and believe the grand objective is an
educated personality, and personality Is of all elements the most
individual, we must not bow down and worship a false equality.
For education, though. it has a mass aspect, since we
must aim at certain basic training which all should have, is not,
properly considered, a riass matter. It is not the business of
today's educators to turn out the 1961 model, with automatic
mental transmission gears. Once we get above the rudiments,
education is the business, I repeat, of produc1ng an educated
personality. The wo: k of organising a coinaunity educational
service is therefore a complex one, requiring great skill,
devotion, and understanding. What is to be aimed at is a
general system, producing individuals of great variety.
In Australia, I. believe that we tend to carry unifon'ity
too far. Even in the drafting of the Commonwcalth Constitution
the fears of the self-governing colonies, fears that one prospective
State might secure some advantage over another
produced a series of requirements of " uniformity" which have not
always been of advantage. For example, Section 99 of the
Constitution provides, reflecting the fears of the Nineties, that
" The Commonwealth shall not, by any law or regulation
of trade, commerce, or revenue, give preference to one State
or any part thereof over another State or any partthereof".
Though this promisiorj has pcrhaps been splendidly
ignored in the special tax prov: ii ra0 1! ting to remote areas,
it is clear to many of us that slIa] Lisc. b or trade treatment
of particular parts of thc; Comnn x tt rnay ' rove to be vital to
a true and balanced n dov 0 passion for
uniformity can be carric?, much far,
I return to my subject, education, whore this same
passion can do great harm. Except in broad physical
characteristics, men are not uniform. They all want education,
but they do not all need the same kind of educa-tion. I oppose
early specialisation at sdool, for it serves to narrow the mind
and restrict the full development of personality. But in the
later stages before matriculation there nust be some room for a
consideration of the life which the boy is expected to live.
What is good for the prospective University student is not
necessarily identical with what is good for a prospective wheat
farmer. Each should know something of language and literature
and history, to take some examples, for these are part of the
essential furniture of his mind. But when it comes to special
subjects, each should be given his chance.
When I first met them, years ago, I was much
impressed ( as I still am) by the Tasmanian Area Schools, with
their special studies for boys who were going to live and work
on the land. I saw great cono. on sense in this, so long as it
did not impair those general studies which seem to me to be
essential for education of any kind.
It is just because I think that too much uniformity in
education is bad, and philosophically considered, self-defeating,
that I do not believe that the constitutional power over
education should be transferred to the Comnonn. alth Parliament.
In a continent like ours, with i: rnohse vari. et.~ e-s of physical and
humrian characteristics, variety bu ( i'volopod. Men are
different. It is just because they are differmnt that our
parliamentary democracy survives. For the greatest of all
liberties is that which exists in a nan's own mind. It is a
liberty of which he alone is master, and it makes him to that
extent a master, not a servant. Produce in a nation a generation
of men and women with liberty in their own individual minds, and
dictatorship becomes impossible.
Montesquieu, who has had such an influence upon organic
political science, had no respect for uniformity. He looked for
a system of government ( which the United States and Australia to
Sa degree adopted) where there is a division of power, where
power checks power. He firmly believed that the idea of
uniformity appealed to little minds, who found in it a species of
perfection. Whatever brand of politics the student nay some day
profess, or reject or ignore, the educator must look at him, not
as an economic unit some day Lo be recorded by a statistician,
but as an individual, to be sent out into the world some day as a
better individual. For the better the individual the more
conscious will he be of his responsibilities to his neighbour and
to society. But learning and skill are not all. One of the aims of
this College is " to uphold within the profession and to proclaim
in the community the higher values of education". This is
supremely important, if bad money is not to dkive out good, and
lead to a general debasement of the moral and intellectual
currency. I take leave to adopt, with acknowledgement, the wise
words of Father J. P. Gleeson at the Founders Convention, when
this aim was under discusion
" All knowledge is grist to the mill of the educator;
but unless he conctrms himself Tith his pupil's character he
remains an informer, a source of fLicts piled upon one
another and imparted to a mind both immature and untrained
in their proper use."
This idea that character, a proper conception of
life, is the element most necessary to be achieved, runs right
through every aspect of life. As Charles Morgan said in his
" Liberties of the Mind" a book which should stand
alongside Sir Richard Livingstone's " Education for a World
Adrift" near every educated man's fireside
" Everything, including democracy, is destroyed by its
own extremes: personal rule by absolutism; oligarchy, or
bureaucracy, by closeness, rigidity, and centralisation;
plutocracy by avarice; democracy by a watering of its only
valid currency of self-discipline and self-respect."
I seek your indulgence when I quote another passage
from the same book which I have for years found quite haunting
" Immortality is not to be voted at a political meeting.
Posterity will not stay in any man's school. We are wilful
and enchanted children, by the grace of God He whom we
love and remember is not he who thrusts upon us his own
dusty chart of the Supreme Reality, scored over with his
arguments, prejudices, and opinions; nor he who will draw a
nap of heaven on the blackboard and chastise us with
scorpions if we will not fall down and worship it; but he
who will pull the curtain away from the classrocm window
and let us see our own heaven with our own eyes. Añ d this
enablement of mankind I take to be the function of true
education for the very word neans a leading out, and to
lead out the spirit of man, through the wise, liberating
self-discipline of learning and wonder, has been the glory
of great teachers and of great universities since
civilisation began to flower".
In other words behind, inspiring and making a good
use of skills, there must be an increasing awareness of the
ethical aspects of life. For without such awareness, and the
individual attitude which it will produce, all of our educational
efforts can bring us to ultimate disaster.
I use the word ethics in a general way; not as
denoting " Christian ethics", th. ugh to nany of us these are the
highest; not in any discriminating sense. Christianity remains,
as a Scottish preacher once said, dramatically, in my hearing
" the greatest ninority movement in the history of the world".
But there are other religions with their own ethical rules and
moral compulsions. The main thing is that education must notbaso
resolutely utilitarian as to be pagan and degrading. Secular
education must not come to mean selfish education.
I an convinced that if our approach to education is
( in the popular " practical" way) " how much can I get for myself
out of it or how much can my family get out of it in terms of
financial advantage or social position?" then we shall see the
material advancement of the nation matched by moral decay, and
ultimately destroyed by it.
I have stressed the point of ethics because I believe
that the most important thing to consider and learn in this
world is the nature of man his duties and rights, his place in
society, his relationship to his Creator. This is why as Sir
Richard Livingstone says in " The Rainbow Bridge" " history
and literature must enter into any education; for they are our
chief records of man and his ways."
This is, of course, not to subtract one thing from
the immense importance of the teaching of science and technology
to which, quite clearly, we must devote more and more effort and
attention. For the world reasons to which I have referred, we
have a moral obligation to promote all of those practical
studies which will help to solve the population and production
problem. But this is not to obscure the truth that, whether our
education is to produce scientists or engineers or doctors, or
lawyers or teachers or preachers, there are basic studies which
are essential for educated people, and the absence of which can
make a man of technical skill a social menace.
It is perhaps unfortunate that a notion has obtained
some currency, that there is an educational conflict between
the study of science and the study of the humanities; that
students should be put to their choice of one or the other.
This is quite wrong. We live in a material world, the forces in
which it is the business of sciance to understand, and the
business of technology to harness and direct. But this world,
of matter and physical dynamism, is a world in which men live;
in which the fate and welfare of men must be the prime
consideration.
It is in this sense that " the proper study of mankind
is man". I believe that the greatest scientists are well aware
of this; are conscious of the duality of their task. We must
not achieve a lop-sidedness in our education. L scientist who
was unaware of literature and history or of the principles of
social responsibility would be dangerous. A humanist who turned
his back upon the discoveries in natural science, who did not
know something of their impact upon life and living would be
conder ming himself to a socially fruitless lifo in a non-radioactive
ivory tower.
I come back, therefore, to those basic studies which
are essential for educated people. In Australia, Latin and Greek
appear to be on the way out, to the impoverishment of our
understanding of our own language, and of our historic sense.
We must seek to repair this position, not by a vain attempt to
restore the old classical learning, but by insisting, in all our
educational plans upon some reasonable knowledge of our language,
of history, and of the processes of thought. This last is
important, not as some separate subject for the class-room, but
as something which pervades others. After all the business of
the educator is to teach students to think, ana to think for
themselves. The neglect of the English language, both in writing
and in speech, seems to me to be quite seriois. I have known
Doctors of Philosophy in Economics, for example, whose disregard
of clear and grammatical Ehglish and whose subservience to
jargon add to the natural difficulties of the reader, and make
one regret that J. M. Keynes is no longer with us. There are
some men of great mental ability and equipment who struggle to
find utterance through obscurity " you know what I meanl"
Perhaps we have not fully realised that the more
complex life becomes, and the more the business of discovery
goes on, the more important is clarity and persuasiveness of
speech and writing.
Knowledge, to be of use to others, should be
communicated to others. I remember, many years ago, saying to
the late Sir John Monash, after hearing him put a case to the
Victorian Government in relation to the State Electricity
Commission, of which he was the founding Chairman " you know,
Sir John, everybody knows you as a very great soldier and a
notable engineer. But I think of you also as one of the
greatest advocates I have ever listened to." He smiled and
said " These things are, after all, not unrelated. I doubt
whether I could have done what I did in France, or got my ideas
put into operation, if I had not acquired and practised the
great art of expression!"
Clearly we neglect the treasures of our language at
our peril and, on occasion, to the loss of others.
As for the treasures of our literature, perhaps the
richest in the world, we owe it to ourselves and to others
constantly to refresh our minds and our memories by
enthusiastic reading. May I illustrate this by a reference to
an art of which I must by now have learned something; the art
of politics. Nothing has so widespread a significance for the
daily life of a nation as the decisions taken by goverrnments.
Small errors can do harm; great errors can inflict grievous
injury. The statesman therefore has the initial responsibility
of close study and concentrated thought leading to a decision
in his own mind.
But the problem does not end there. Ho must
communicate his ideas, to a Cabinet, to Parliament, to the
people. He must do this as well as he possibly can. His
language must be such as to arrest and sustain interest, He
must not condescend. He must seek to instruct, to oxplain, and
to inspire. The vocabulary he employs must be rich afid flexible.
He must not under-estimate the public by thinking that the
comon-place is good enough. I am no great example in these
matters, but having prepared my ideas and my arguments for an
important speech, I find it a good thing, tho night before, to
read poetry. To some, this sounds silly; but it can make a
great difference in the choice of words and in the weight and
balance of sentences when the time to speak comes.
I turn now to what I will call some specific
challenges in the field of education.
There is, of course, a great challenge to our
university structure, brought about by the fantastic rate of
increase in the demand for higher education. This is the most
remarkable feature of the post-war years.
I remember, just after the war, brooding gloomily upon
the future of the great public schools, many of them Church
foundations. Could they survive what was likely to be a
prolonged period of high taxation? Could parents face
increased fees under such circumstances? My brooding was wasted;
these schools have doubled and trebled in size, and have long
waiting lists. The same is true of the universities. The end of the
war saw a great rush of new students. Accommodation became
hopelessly overcrowded; classes became too big for effective
work. The Murray Committee writing in 1957, when actual
university enrolments were 6,50Q, forecast an enrolment by
1960 of 4+ 8,000. In fact the figures turned out to be 53,0001
Murray thiought he was entering the realms of phantasy when ho
gave 71 000 as the prospective figure for 1965. But the present
Universities Commission estimates that the figure will be just
on 90,000. In the face of these figures, at once so stimulating
and so mienacing, are we to go along the old paths of the 19th
century university conception, or must we devise new and varied
instruments of tertiary education, some more advanced and
costly than others, some simpler and cheaper? Can we make more
effective and economic use of the facilities we now have? My
Government is about to set up a special and powerful committee
to advise the University Commission on these questions. It will
" consider the pattern of higher education in relation to the
needs and resources of the nation and make recommendation on
the future development of higher education in Australia".,
A similar investigation is being conducted in Great
Britain. The demands of education at all stages are tremendous.
Socially, this is good. But we shall do badly if we ignore ( as
I fear rmany do), the inexorable practical considerations which
must be taken into account.
Money is not unlimited, even in the Commonwealth
Treasury. I find it constantly necessary to point out that
governments have no money of their own. Governments are trustees
not independent capitalists. Every effective pound of their
expenditure must be worked for and earned by the people, and
transferred to government by means of taxation and loans,
Yet, within the limits of their capacity thus
created? governments in. Australia have been both aware and
responsive, In university education, the student aspects of which
I have-just mentioned, the financial involvements are huge. in
my own time as Prime Minister the Comonwealth without direct
constitutional responsibility save in its own territories, has
found, 9for State university grants, rapidly incraasing sums.
From 150, when our first special grant was made, until and
including 1957, the total was al. gm In the Murray trienniiuma
1958-59-60, it'was œ 21.843m. In the current period 1961-2-3
it rises to œ C40.809ml Great and growing though these figuresare,
they are very greatly exceeded by the amounts found by the
States themselves. On the forecasts of student population, it is clear
that even with a " Inew look" at the structure and instruments of
tertiary education, the Budget burdens will continue to grow
greater and greater.
In education, including primiary and secondary, State
Governments have, I believe, dlone remarkably well, assisted by
the Commonwealth-States financial arrangements for taxreimbursement
and loan works programmes. In 1950-51 total
expenditure on education by the States was œ C+ 6m. Expenditure
for 1959-60 was over œ C160m.
It becomes clear that gYovernments of all kinds are
aware of the challenge of education and are striving manfully
to meet it. But even more onerous than the financial burden
which the nation will cheerfully carry as it sees the national
benefits accrue, is the problem of maintaining the supply and.
the standards of professors, lecturers, and teachers. We must
in large measure produce these ourselves for the demands of
education elsewhere are no less insistent than our own.
Standards and quality are vital. If the pressure upon our
trained human resources grows too g; reat, higher education will
suffer a grievous and perhaps a fatal blow,
And there is another challenge, to teachers of all
grades, primary, secondary, tertiary. You may exercise
yourselves, not unnaturally, about your rights. I understand
this. For a good teacher is a good man, and he ought to be
paid as such. Every man of intellect and responsibility who
chooses the noble vocation of teaching should not have to devote
too great a share of his timie to the problems of physical
living. Right through the whole structure of teaching, salaries
should be adequate,, There have been, in modern times, great
improvements in this field. No doubt, there is still room for
improvement. But a sense of vocation has its own compulsions. And
the greatest of these compulsions is to seek out and expound the
truth. There can be no room for the slipshod or the tendentious.
The old rules hold good; that " references should be verified",
that facts should be ascertained with care and presented wit
precision. An educated man is one who, In addition to a
reasonable stock-in-trade of factual information technical or
otherwise, has learned to think for himself and to form
objective judgments. " Read not to contradict and confute, nor
to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and
discourse, but to weigh and consider"..
Thcre is still agoo) deal of mental dishonesty in the
world; it is perhaps more prevalent than larceny from the
person. " Arrive in advance at your conclusion, guided by emotion
or prejudice; then force the facts into the pro-determined
mouldi" No man can be a great, or even a good teacher, who
yields to this temaptation. Yet there are those, in schools and
universities, who do. To teach history, for example so as to
justify some current and porsonally held political theory, is to
deface history and obscure the lassons it can teach to the
uninhibited and unbiassed mind. The -ood teacher has a great
power and a great glory. As we all know, looking back, he
achieves though he may not know it at the tim, a species of
honourable immortality with his students. Butl this is because
he is a true teacher, not one who worships false gods.
I fear that in this address which, you will have no
difficulty in understanding, I have had to prepare in stolen
hours in a period of great political pressures my remarks have
been unduly discursive. But it may be at least not harmfiul if I
sum up my own thesis.
Education in Australia has two great tasks. One, which
it would be aloofly academic to ijizore or to disparage is to
train as many students as possible in bodies of knowl eage which
will make them more competent to deal with the practical affairs
of life. We must train and equip more competent workers in
every branch of every industry; more and bettor sciontists and
technologists; more and better admr~ inistrators engineers,
doctors and lawyers; m~ ore trained and dedica ed educators;
more and. more equipped and responsible electors and those they
choose for the duties of government. This is a great and costly
task, To the extent that we fail in it, we will imperil our
own material advancement. But the other great task is even more
important. It is a anmon, but attractive error, to think of
modern advances in applied science, from the telephone to
television, from the motor-car to aircraft to rockets and space
vehicles, as in themselves the proof of advancing civilisation.
These are among the mere mechanical aids to civilisation, They
may be wisely or wickedly used6 Civilisation is in the hearts
and minds of men. It will advance or fall back according to the
use we make of knowledge and of skill. In spite of all we have
had to our hands, the twentieth century has seen more of greed
and inhumanity, more of war and barbarism, more of hatred and
envy and malice, than any of us could have foreseen when we were
young and hopeful. We have seen great skill employed with hatred; science
with envy; diplomacy with threat and blackmail; the distraction
as I pkjrsonally believe, of too many skilled people from
improving the lot of mankind upon earth to a tremendous
competition in space, in which prestige threatens to out-match
usefulness, We must recapture our desire to know more and
feel more, about our fcllowmen; to have a philosophy ol living;
to elevate the dignity of man, a dignity which, in our Christian
concept, arises from our belief that he is made in the image of
his Meker, The tasks of the educator in this century have not
ended. Properly and thoughtfully considered, they are only
beginning.