PUBLIC OPTNION.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 May 1926, Page 4

PUBLIC OPTNION.

: THE KINGDOM OF THE LOST. 1 “I promise the earnest seeker who is willing to explore the kingdom of the vagrant and the outcast, in order to understand something of the frailties, g . the sufferings, the temptations, and tho vices that make his daily world, a q time of rich discovery and profit. I ,j guarantee that the investigator will come back to his daily toil with, a new thrill of enthusiasm, a closer kinship with his fellows, a heart deep in com- v passionate tenderness, a mind edified and enlarged beyond his wildest hopes, ■ and a fuller and wider comprehension of that mysterious stuff of life that makes the whole world kin.”—The Rev Frank L. Jennings. YEARS OF REVELATION. * “Those middle years are the years of self-revelation. 5 outli can rccovei ; age can forget; the meaning of life lies mid-way. They tell us that the future is with the young, and not quite so confidently, that wisdom is with the ’ aged. But youth seldom is powerful until its right to the title is dubious. The best deeds in most people’s lives are in their forties. If they are pro- 1 cocious, the maximum of power may bo 1 reached in the late thirties; ii they aic slow-growing, like the oak, in the early fifties. —Dr F. \V. Norwood, in tho “ Christian World.” 1 THE FOUNTAIN HEAD. ; “ 'What our generation needs, ill truth, is not to have the old religion . replaced, hut to have it reinterpreted. Religion as we know it in the world is n thing of infinite variety, of endless ramification, of exceeding intricacy. Even Christianity may seem to he the name, not of a simple view ol life, but • of a vast and complex historical devel- ■ opment; and there are many who have i lost their way in its maze of doctrines • and sects. That is the real root of our , trouble, and I believe there is only ■ one way of meeting it—we must find s our wav hack to the fountain head. Me must make rediscovery, and help others ) to make rediscovery, of the true centre i of gravity in this accumulated mass of t, tradition. We must dig down afresh to | its deep foundations in human exporit, once.”—Professor John Baillie. ‘ ' THE SPIRIT OF LOCARNO. ! “Four years ago M. Briaiul would ~ have been execrated by his countrymen ]i for tacitly placing tho linns on a plane with themselves, hut when, after p Inning hided his time with a patience j s unsurpassed by Job’s and hardly equnlled by Mr John R. Rockefeller’s, ho , ' courageously swept away the animosi- ’| ties that barred the path to peace and returned to Paris, he was greeted by t a huge delegation ol blind, legless and " armless soldiers grouped under a rcj- splendent banner hearing this inscripI firm: ‘ Welcome to the Man Who lias , Insured Our Children Against the M.isj fortunes Which Have Befallen Us.’ i Deeply touched by this surprising tribute, the happy recipient hailed it ns T | heralding ‘ The Spirit of Locarno,’ and J thereby coined a ' phrase whose influI cnee upon future conferences cannot he I measured.”—Colonel George llarvey, °* in the “ North American Review.”

A RACE WITHOUT HANDICAPS. “Fees of all kinds and for every stage of national education, must ho abolished. Where the bar to further education is poverty, adequate maintenance grants should he given, not as cl arity, hut as the most profitable development of our national estate. ' Huxley’s ladder’ from the primary school to the university must no longer he the limit of the nation’s ideals. There must be instead a broad highway with open side paths.to highly efficient specialised training for industry and commerce. Parental poverty should be no brake to progress along these educational paths. Enlightened democracy asks not for equality of possessions, but insistently demands equality of opportunity, a fair chance for the son of the toiler *to break this birth’s invidious bar —Mr Fred Rnrracloiigli in the “ Dniiv 'role-

THE ORDEALS OF PEACE. “Wliiit is cultivated hv elementary ('as distinct Irimi other) education, is the mass-intelligence of ;i. country; and on that depends the country’s social stability. We saw cause and elfoct plainly enough during the war, when peoples like the Russians and Italians, with huge percentages of illiteracy, proved disastrously liable (despite their personal courage) to panics and ‘nerves.’ Indeed, the degree of stamina shown by the different nations throughout the struggle corresponded very closely to their respective degrees of literacy. What i.s true of war’s ordeal. will be true, also of the ordeals of ponce. A people, whose masses have been well educated in its primary schools, will preserve its balance, when else it would fall into revolution.”--‘‘Dailv Chronicle.”