Transport Education
Page 49
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NO one can long be associated with the Institute of Transport without becoming aware of the importance of education. Out of a total membership of 3,495 there are 1,255 graduates and 492 students, to whom the Institute owes, as of right, some reasonable provision by which they may qualify to join the ranks of the corporate members, and by which again the future standard of attainment by the Institute may be determined. When the Institute was founded it was, the author believes, intended that in due course the transport officer should acquire professional status. Now, 14 years after the foundation, the Institute has not yet reached a position in which it can strictly fulfil its first intention.
Professionalism to be Resisted.
The temptation towards professionalism is to be resisted. It is not, maybe, the best spirit in which to conduct large undertakings, particularly when such must come into close daily contact with numbers of people as passengers, forwarders of goods and merchandise, and so forth. Something more humane and liberal is required. In the adminiStration of large affairs, specialization, which is the essence of professionalism, may only weaken the grasp. it is much easier to obtain a good engineer or a good solicitor than it is to obtain a good manager.
The charter of the Institute recognizes education under two forms. There is the education of the schools, and that which mnst come to those who secure advancement in transport service from the day-to-day experiences as they relate themselves in the mind. The charter, indeed, recognizes an interdependence between the two, for it requires of the corporate members both, as a general rule. Experience gives a breath of reality to -learning; study gives a breadth and depth to the thin stream of experience.
The syllabus of Leeds University in an introductory passage states the position fairly in another form Academic instruction cannot take the place of the numerous details on which success in business depends, but, in wider matters of policy, knowledge of detail cannot take the place of some training in industrial causation and tendencies."
The Institute's Obligation.
Transport as a subject of study has not yet taken any clear academic form. In certain cases its scope is being defined more narrowly than is good; in others, study is attempting to accomplish what experience alone can do. It is, therefore, clear that there is a need for a co-ordination of all educational facilities, rather than for any fresh scheme to extend them. The Institute has a special obligation to undertake the task, and the author can only open up the subject.
The Institute has already taken upon itself a great responsibility, for it has issued a syllabus of its own in which it sets out the curriculum which it desires its students and graduates to follow in their efforts to arrive at full membership. It seems to the author a deed of great daring, and he can scarcely think that those who do it realize what an influence for good or ill they are letting loose.
He is inclined to think that in the Institute's syllabus it has not sufficiently made up its mind, for he sees about it the marks of compromise and the .seeds of confusion. It is
excusable, for transport is a new branch of the tree of knowledge and what flower or fruit it will bear is scarcely yet foreseen.
Broadly, what is provided falls into two definite categories which are very old. Aristotle first drew them when be, somewhat significantly, described the education of the free and of the slave. There is the man who must work for his living, and there is the man of leisure whose duty it is to be cultured as he appropriates for himself the surplus or means.
A Liberal Education Recommended.
Is the Institute to seek a vocational or technical education for its candidates? If so, then the proper course to follow is towards professionalistn; or is it to seek a liberal education for its candidates, content to find in them adaptability and resource which can be applied in many directions? On the author's part, looking at transport in all its variety of interest, in all its complex relationships to society, he has no hesitation in choosing the liberal education. "A man of well-improved faculties has the command of another's knowledge ; a man without them has not command of his own." So said Cardinal Newman.
The first step even in a liberal education is a practical one. Reading, writing and arithmetic are the foundation of an elementary education. Statistics, accounting, office methods and routine, commercial practice—these are the foundation of an education in transport. The elements and principles of them might well engage the first year's attention of our candidates. To these should be added a foreign language, not merely because it may he useful and remove a disgrace from us, but more especially because we learn to think in another mental atmosphere or setting, in translating what we grasp in our own language into something which can be equally clearly grasped in another.
Having equipped ourselves with the requisite tools we can efficiently attack the syllabus. The author names four principal subjects—economics, geography, law and industrial politics. They are chameleon-like and take on a variety of hues. Economics must be studied for its principles, its constructive purpose, without subdivision ; the variety only comes in with the illustrative or descriptive matter by which these abstractions are made concrete. The value of geography rests in its wide and readily grasped relationships.
Law is a living subject, and a student watches its growth as case after case proceeds to develop and clarify the rule of law, to soften its asperities, to temper it with equity.
Industrial politics is an uncertain subject ; its scope is ill-defined, its province uncharted. It remains an awkward problem for those who would draw up a syllaibus. It appears as the organization of commerce and industry, as industrial relations, as industrial psychology. Politics as related to the affairs of State has its counterpart in politics related to industry, and in the confusiou which exists in political thought proper to-day the author is convinced that the study of the subject matter within the confines of industry, even of transport, would prove more illuminating, and would send the student into the world of affairs with sharper vision.
Specializing in the Road Traffic Act.
The Road Traffic Act, 1930, and the volume of regulations and decisions which have become attached to it—accretions to which grow almost while we talk—could be made to form the basis of a useful and valuable education.
For a long time the Underground group of companies has been directly or indirectly providing educational facilities for the staff, largely free of cost. The result has not been satisfactory. That which costs nothing is often worth nothing to the recipient. Excuses for non-attendance have been easily framed and lightly accepted. The author has come to realize that-, in a sense, a sacrifice is essential to make sure that such facilities are real and appreciated.