CASTLEGAR NEWS, Thursday, Sept. 5, 1963 8 (continued from. Page one) ‘ficulty. Bring them up to the pro- vincial matriculation exams, If Sam Brown, who never went to schoo) in his’ life, has, made a fortune rustling cattle and suddenly gets an overpowering urge to learn Chinese, then take his $200 a year fees and make him work at ‘his Chinese as bard .as.he can. One of the great benefits of this kind of a college would be that it would be impossible to run it like a school. Adults won't stand for any nonsense about not whist- Ung in the halls. Nobody could stop Sam Brown from chewing snoose in his Chinese class, When J first attended Victoria College in 1948, the majority of the students were veterans back from the wars in Europe, Africa and the Far East. ‘They were keen, they were hard- working, they..were grown-up and they were extremely good for us youngsters just up from school. .Many other people are in favor of this kind of a college, Last Tuesday, I went down to see Dr, ‘Wales'who is the director of adult education in ‘Vancouver., As: you probably know, Vancouver is fac- ing exactly the same problems you are facing. The Vancouver Schoo} Board is planning to build a two- year college. Their college is still in the p stage, as yours but Dr, Wales and others are hop: ing that the Board and the Muni- PRESIDENT. ‘CAN. PARK & TILFORD cipality will agree to build a com. prehensive ‘college of the kind I have described, i (5) One final point; quality, You want quality above all. This means, mainly, hiring teachers who really know their subjects, and who are really good teachers. A course for technicians in the mining (and smelting | industries ought to be taught only by someone who has.the respect of the people in the mining and smelting indust- ry... You must’ know ai subject in order to teach it, I think that many teachers, like many priests, have from the beginning of time tried to: pretend that there is a great mystery to which they. alone hold the key. There is just enough truth in., the old: proverb, «Those .who can;do; those who can’t, | seach ” There is just enough truth in to. make it. necessary to shnoae teachers very carefully. | How.ean you choose good tea- chers for Kootenay. College? The answer to-this question — if you want'an honest :answer'— is: that you.can’t, You must set a thief to catch a thief. You must let some- one in the trade do it. The only way to do this is to go to a lot of trouble to find a good principal for Kootenay College and then let him pick his own staff. I.am in so. deep already that perhaps I might go ‘on to say: what sort of a principal you need, "In: my view, he need not ne- ily -be a good After all, he can easily find some- one capable of keeping the records straight and dealing with money ‘1and tough students. You need an ue Phe WM. M. HAMILTON ap, inted President and Biecer of Canadian rk & piled, Ted, itis anmouneed Ww. Ee a Tiitords head. office and distillery are located, energetic man, a strong man, — if I may resort to Sunday-school Phrases — a wise one. . To be more specific, you need a _man.who js or who has been a respected specialist in some aca- demic subject, I mean by this that we ‘should exclude two kinds of people from the job: first the aca- demic operator or hanger-on who is becoming a professional mana- ger; and gecondly, the so-called “education expert” or “educator”. There are, of course, many good ones, ‘but -the risks are’ great -be- cause ‘both: kinds of men tend to think about education in. the ab- stract, rather than about subjects; and because their subject is a mock-subject in which fads and fashions play an alarmingly. im- portant role; and finally because, if you are like me, you. can very rarely tell what they are talking about. "What willbe the main dif- ference beween Kootenay College and a high-school? There ought to be a difference in the relationship. between the student and his. teachers, and ‘a difference in their approach to r. Bosher’s Speech to AKM the subjects taught. In junior school, of course, the childs tea- chers are like uncles and aunts to him, They, must tell him stories and wipe his nose; he will believe what they tell him and, for 10 minutes at a time, even listen, In high-school, the student is in revolt and his teachers are the enemy,’ He. tries to’ get the best of them and to humiliate them at every opportunity. The. high- school teacher must use the carrot or the stick to make him learn,’ These. days, the carrot happens to be in fashion, but this doesn't hide the essential chaos, the horrible anarchism which bubbles under. neath like a voleano in every school... Knowledge of his subject is usually secondary to the high- school teacher, as any of us who teach teachers knows _ perfectly well, The poor devil is mainly con- cerned with survival, or what he euphemistically calls “methods”. In college, on the other hand, the teacher usually assumes .that his subject ‘is important, He docs not try to water it down. much, I Jearned more in a month at Vic- toria College than I had learned in a year at school. . + The college teacher does not talk. about “social studies”, but about geography, history and eco- nomics. If the student feels like staying away from classes. the tea- cher...doesn’t - usually mind and sometimes he doesn’t even notice, It is up to the student, Sometimes he can learn things quicker from graduates,’ except for Honors stu- dents, tho University of. British Columbia is a college. The under- graduate. programme is what would describe as “useful: make- believe" ‘in the academic division, the curriculum of Kootenay College will inevitably be the same,” For. the past while, UBC -has been struggling to become ‘a uni- versity, This means, in most fields in, the 20th century, that it must hire (people who will engage .in expensive research, The unlversi- ty, must hire people for thelr: ori- ginality,in ‘their fields, for. thelr ability to do research and’ to write and to publish, It must take main- ly students who are heading for that kind of life, But many people at UBC do uot .:understand this “and they would like ‘it to be a college, This is what many other people there have been worried about recently, This;is.what my friend Ave Stroll meant when he complained about the university budget.:The news- Papers got.it all wrong and thought that he meant higher. salaries for professors, But what he meant, and many of us are really worried: about, is provision of equipment, ., books, time and good men from all over the world. to engage : in .research on the frontiers of knowledge. This is the main: worry about ‘numbers of students, If the tide. of under- graduates rises too. high it will make all the. scientists and scho- lars-in; the, piace swim. for. their lives,; If. this happened, the place would be: ruled by. make-believe, and-you: would have to look