Teachers

Under present conditions the teachers in any scheme would have to be civilians, we were told. The time of Army instructors just now is completely taken up by their military work, though as far as we know there has never been a serious suggestion that military instructors should turn their hand to what is really civilian teaching. To wake in a soldier's mind an appreciation of the beauties of Keats would, we think, require a different technique to that [unclear: used] to explain the mechanism of a [unclear: Bren] gun (e.g., "If there is no damned ammunition in it the b——thing won't fire!). The officer said there were former school teachers in the Army who would be capable of taking classes, but nowhere near enough to run an organised educational system. The scheme the General has in mind is a series of lectures along W.E.A. lines on current affairs and generally educational subjects. Attendance at these lectures would be voluntary, so that they would have to be sufficiently popular to attract the boys in their off-duty time, though the Army felt tha the student type would probably go to night lectures of any nature. Such a broad scheme, it seems to "Salient," would serve to impart information to and stimulate the thinking of many soldiers who in civilian life were the type that takes a healthy interest in all that is going on about him, yet who does not follow up such interests to their conclusion because he lacks the trained student's analytical approach. It would also serve a great purpose in bringing education to many men who perhaps wanted it in their youth, but who could not get it because they had not the money.