The Dominion THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 1943. THE WINDOW OF EXPERIENCES

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 99, 21 January 1943, Page 4

The Dominion THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 1943. THE WINDOW OF EXPERIENCES

The motto of the University of New Zealand, translated, is ‘’Dare to be ’Wise.” This phrase, admirably appropriate to the aims of our highest institution of learning, was the text of a little homily that was part of the address delivered by the Chancellor, Mr. Hanan, at the opening of the annual meeting of the Senate last week. There is a saying, a very true one, that “knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It could not be otherwise, for wisdom is harvested from expelience, ano only by those who have learnt to profit by what has happened to themselves, to their contemporaries, and to the generations of the past. Mam- of the follies of mankind, the tragedies of wars, the errors of governmental policies, legislation, and administration, our social ills, have been the result of failure to take to heart the lessons of human experience as written in the pages of history and in the records of out own times. . , . . Mr. Hanan’s emphasis on the importance and value ot histoiy was, therefore, as a pointer to present-day thinking upon the problems of the future, very timely. As the result of much public discussion and debate since the war began it has come to be taken as a matter of course that the world is on the brink of vast changes in the social, po itical and economic life of its peoples. Wars or no wars, the conditions of human existence never remain static. Change is the essence of progress. As long as it is recognized as part of a continuous process, not as an end in itself—or, as the saying is, “change for the sake of change”—evolution from phase to phase in ascending scale can be kept steady and controllable. Disorder and chaos may easily, follow from neglect of this wise precaution —from policies which insist that destruction of existing systems and institutions must precede the ci cation of something new. That was what was attempted in Geimany under National Socialism, with the frightful consequences and harrowing misery which we see in Europe today. It is of vital importance that the ardent apostles of a new world reformation should be restrained by the counsels of wisdom and moderation, and, above all, that every change proposed should be carefully studied in the light of the experience of the past, and weighed accordingly. It should by this time have become clear to most of us that much of the present social and political disorder that afflicts the world has been due to neglect of ethical principles which the lessons of history should have warned nations could only be disregarded at "rave risk to their survival. The Chancellor referred to “the deformities of selfishness, self-indulgence, slothful ease, negligence and weakness, that springs from want of self-reliance, of thrift, of industry, from the lack-of the power of personal initiative, and from the intent to seek only material comforts and physical satisfactions, with. the effect of enfeebling manhood and womanhood.” These deformities have become a visible growth in the body politic, and reasonably and fairly may be traced to certain fundamental errors of policy and legislation of which the banishment of moral teaching on a spiritual basis from the State schools -is one. Every proposal aimed at reform in this or that particular sphere of human existence should be studied, as Mr. Hanan rightly urges, “through the window of experiences,” and with consistent recognition of the essential condition that if must conform to ethical principle.