THE FINAL NEED

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 32, 7 February 1931, Page 13

THE FINAL NEED

RESTORING THE NATION

DAMAGED MORALE

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Lang, made some interesting observations in praise of the modern girl in his Speech Day address at Cheltenham Women's College, reports the "Daily Mail." Dr. Lang said: ,■■'■'■ "Whatever else may be said about the modern'girl—and many things, mostly unjust, are said about her—this. I will say, she is able now to talk to elderly persons with ■ the most delightful freedom from embarrassment and constraint. "In the old days girls were so constantly preoccupied with their 'P's and Q's/ and bo constantly restricted and constrained in the presence of elderly persons like me, th.ey were very often awkward aild embarrassed. 'That day is gone, and there is nothing more delightful than the way in which you are now able to get behind our age or our importance and take us as we are in ourserves and into your. companionship." Speaking* of the value of cultivating the habit of reading good literature, Dr. Lang referred i to the hold of the bridgeplaying habit in many women: "I put it to you whether you want to spend your'time in these dreary, desultory efforts to get over the blank hours; or whether in your leisure you will keep company with the immortals? "The world outsjde is ho full, increasingly, of rush and racket, that that; rush and racket frays the spirit and makes it thin, superficial, and weak. The soul cannot possess itself unless it learus to be still. ' Dr. Lang declared that the things most wanted at the present time aud on which everything else depended was the strengthening of the moral fibre of the people. He said: "It has grown slack. The reasons are many and obvious. The standard of comfort has happily grown and widened, but it has created so many expectations of comfort and ease and amusement, surrounded people with such a sense > of security ,_ that they are losing the virility and native resourcefulness of their character. '■ "The need at this anxious time is not merely the rationalisation of industries, relief work, or Imperial expansion—however necessary, some or all of these may be—for without something ejpe these will either be never achieved or else be ineffective. _ i "The final need' is to restore and strengthen the moral fibre of the home; and every girl who brings from school a character disciplined and exercised in responsibility is bringing an invaluable asset to the State and to .the life of the country." '