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Mad Hatter Page 2

 

Useful Insights

Is there, however, any necessity for adults
to learn? Cannot they make what they
already know suffice for their daily needs?
Should they not ‘sit back' and let the
youngsters do the learning? This brings us
to an important part of our discussion,
namely, the increasing necessity for adult
education,

That there is an increasing necessity for
adult education is patent to all, and the
demand will undoubtedly increase, due to
what has been described as technological
unemployment. Science and invention
(technology) have undoubtedly provided our
modern high standards of living and
relieved mankind of much of drudgery and
necessity for muscular labour. At the same
time technology has enabled us to produce
more with fewer hands, and thus throws men
out of work or forces them to change their
occupations. Some of the inventions, such
as that of the internal combustion engine,
while it threw wheelwrights out of work or
forced them to learn the new job of making
motor cars, undoubtedly expanded the field
of employment, not only in motor factories,
but in the making of roads and the produc-
tion of gasoline. In general, however,
science and invention had reached such a
pitch by the middle of the 1920's, that
unemployment was increasing despite un-
precedentedly prosperous times. When that
hypothetical normal designated by
"recovery" is reached, it is highly
probable that we shall still have a great
number of unemployed. In any case, we
shall have greater leisure, for the hours
we work will tend constantly to diminish.
I do not wish to enter upon the vexed
question as to whether or not it is under-
consumption rather than over-production
that is a fault, but as far as we can see
at present mankind, through technological
advancement, will have increased leisure,
either enforced (unemployment) or voluntary.

With this problem of increased technological
leisure Adult Education is intimately
concerned. For the man who is forced to
change his job there is the task of his
re-training. This is essentially the

 

problem of the vocational school, either day]

or evening. For those who cannot be absorb-
ed into industry we see no better solution
than paying them to go to school in order to
learn how to employ their leisure time
wisely. And this wise employment of leisure
time is something that confronts not only
the workless, but also the worker with
additional spare time on his hands. The
training for these may be along technical
lines - to enable them more readily to earn
their livings -- but of much greater import
is the training we give them along cultural
lines. If we train the leisured adults of
the future to enjoy the great arts of the
world - literature, music, painting,
sculpture, architecture, drama, and dancing
- either as consumers or as a producer of
these things, we shall, at least, keep them
happily occupied - and human. If to these
we add the various crafts, and the world of
history, geography, science, etc., we shall
have sufficient offerings to keep them busy
for life. What the leaders in Adult
Education should realize to the full is that
it is they who will determine whether the
new leisure is wisely spent or not. What-
ever our reaction to it, the future will
present us with an increasing number of
leisured adults who will need education in
order to prevent them from degenerating
mentally, physically and morally.

Another angle to the problem of technology
and Adult Education is that which concerns
the widening gap between scientific
progress and social progress. It is almost
a commonplace to say that scientific
progress has outrun social progress; that
in our social thinking and social behaviour
we are still in the age of the cave man.
The reason for this is that social inven-
tions must be accepted by us collectively,
whereas scientific inventions succeed if
they appeal to us as individuals. Compare,
for instance, a social invention such as
co-operative marketing or selling, or
community chests for the support of social
welfare organizations, with a scientific
invention such as the radio. All of them
are of undoubted value, but there is no
comparison between their relative successes.

Radio was a success from the start because

 

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