A "LEGION OF SERVICE"

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 132, 28 February 1921, Page 6

A " LEGION OF SERVICE"

COMMUNITY CLUB SCHEME APPEAL BY GENERAL RUSSELL A statement regarding the aims and objects of the proposed Community Club for Territorials and Senior Cadets .at > Buckle Street has been issued by MajorGeneral Sir Andrew Russell, president of the National Defence League of New Zealand. In pointing out that the v, Community Club scheme is in no sense . "militaristic," but is concerned with the development of citizenship alone, its aim being the creation of the "community spirit,” improvement in the health, 'habits, and ideas of the trainees, and an increasing of their general knowledge in the affairs of their country, the Empire, and of the world in general, Sir Andrew Russell remarks: —

“It is intended that the club shall be staffed by women hostesses at night, on the same lines as the Sydney Street Soldiers’ Club, which proved- such 'a home away from home’ to members of reinforcement drafts in training during the war. These women hostesses, it is hoped, will be fully representative of the whole of the women’s organisations of Wellington, who will take the staffing of tho club in turns, and will endeavour to impart a 'homo atmosphere’ with its heat influences. The club will be available for trainees who are waiting to go on parade to drill, and so should save them knocking about the streets or getting into even more undesirable surroundings. It will also be available for trainees on non-parade nights. There is no desire, of course, that Territorials nnd Senior Cadets who have good homes should go there in preference, but there are, unfortunately, many lads, who, owing to unsatisfactory housing conditions, have not good homes, and who, in the Community Club, will find much more wholesome surroundings and influences than they at present enjoy. . . . “An equally important feature of the scheme is the medical side. The National Defence League has good reason for believing that when the Community Club is established the services of many of the city’s medical practitioners will be available 'to examine, supervise, and generally instruct Territorials and Senior Cadets in regard to their health. In this the league has already secured tho interest, enthusiasm, and sympathy of a. number of the city’s medical men, who

will deliver lectures on the laws of personal health and, hygiene, the duty of everyone to the rest of the community and to posterity in this respect, the problems facing the adolescent, venereal disease, public health and sanitation, etc., and’where necessary will give personal advice. Tho details, of course, have yet to be worked out in consultation with medical men, but the benefits to be conferred by carrying out such a project should be so far-reaching as to be manifest to all and to require no stressing on my part. "The third proposal which tho league places 'before the public in the running of the Community Club is the delivering of .lectures by lending educationists on subject', as ‘The Rights and Duties "of Citizenship,’ ‘Our Rights as Citizens To-dav Compared with those of Our Forefathers.’ ‘The British Empire and What ii Means,' 'The British Empire of . Nations.’ Tctcr-a-tiuaal Diplomacy and Politics,' etc. These lectures, it is emphasised, will be tUHvwMd by educational exporte, who

not only understand their subjects, hut who understand the teaching of youth, and from experience will not talk over the heads of those who are listening to them. This .also opens up, a wide field for instruction which should quicken tho national understanding and do lasting good. . . . "The whole idea is summed up in'the word ‘service,’ and who is a servant—be ho the Primo Minister, or the humblest bootblack —belongs to tho proudest legion of any, the legion of service. And so we can hope that when he looks back on his period of training the Territorial and Cadet of to-day will feel that he is a better Christian, a better citizen, and a better soldier—if the necessity for his becoming such ever arises—for the hours he ha» spent in tho Community Club. "The project now 'before the people of Wellington is the initial effort for the Dominion. Upon tho manner in which they 'Support it depends its extension throughout New Zealand. Tho citizens of Wellington have thus cast upon them the onus not only of promoting the welfare of tho rising manhood of their own city, blit by their examnio of promoting the well-being of the youth of New Ze:i'and ns a whole. It should not ba in vain, therefore, to appeal to them for solid, financial banking and moral support-.* J