The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, APRIL 26, 1901. NATIONAL LIFE.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 91, 26 April 1901, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, APRIL 26, 1901. NATIONAL LIFE.

An interesting address under the title “ National Life from the Standpoint of Science,” has been published by Professor Karl Pearson of the London University. He contends jjhat the struggle between civilised nations in the future will not be the crude collision between armed forces, but the struggle of industrial and commercial methods, the struggle for trade routes and markets, and for outlets for superfluous produce and population. What arc wo doing to train ourselves for this struggle ? In reply, we point to the rise and rapid recognition of technical education. But this really affords no proof that the ponditions of the problem are clearly grasped. What is needed is not a system of training which shall teach the trick of any particular trade or handicraft, how to “ fold cretonnes or polish mahogany but one which will prepare the individual for adapting himself to any new environment, which will cultivate his power of observation and reasoning, which will act as a brain-stretcher, not as a brain-crammer. “ Keep your eyes open and apply common sense,” 4 was the description once given of science; and for the practical science of living, and living efficiently, under the stress and strain of sovero competition, it seems to embody the spirit of what is needed. We have to turn out, not adepts at one particular trade or another, but trained scouts, who will have eyes to see for themselves the conditions and probable fortunes of any particular trade, and brains to discern, and mental rapidity to turn to account, the significant movements in the worlds of industry and commerce. This expanded view of the functions of technical and commercial education is developed at considerable length, and in a fertile and suggestive manner. Finally, if a nation is to play a vigorous part in the struggle of natrons, it must be compact; the organism must not be paralysed by collision and strife within itself. Patriotism is a strong centripetal force, but it must be' strong enough to counteract the centrifugal tendencies furnished by the warfare of class against class, of capital against labor, of employer against employee. All these are sources of weakness to the national organisation. A class, smarting under real or fancied disabilities, should, in making its demands, keep carefully in view the danger of diminishing the efficiency of a rival class, and so of deducting something from the efficiency of the whole organism. And a statesman, in legislating for the benefit of a class, should look through and boyond the immediate object of removing a disability, to the further object of raising the efficiency of the class as an element in the efficiency of the whole organism; while at the same time |this enlarged view will diminish the danger of injuring another class through a spirit of reforming zeal.