ECCENTRICITY DEFINED.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1164, 28 October 1913, Page 4

ECCENTRICITY DEFINED.

There are few Australian clergymen who possess a greater fund of originality than the Bishop of Tasmania, Dr Mercer. In a lecture in Melbourne last week he defined the meaning of the word eccentricity. An eccentric person, he said, was one who would take the place of the crank, the individual who refused to move along the well-defined lines of the social orbit. There were many persons who rebelled against social convention because it would not allow them to be exactly what they chose. They were imbued with the erratic, romantic spirit of the gipsy. One form of eccentricity was love for notoriety, or, in other words, a desire to be talked about. Some people, like Beau Bruramell, succeeded in reaching the height of their ambition by eccentricity in dress. Dress was an easy way to attract notice, either by wearing costumes miles behind the fashion

or miles in front of it. It was a harmless form of eccentricity, but, judging by the present trend, it was difficult to imagine bow it would end. It was necessary that there should be more eccentricity in educatiou. There should be church colleges, otherwise everyone would be put into the Government mould and turned out in accordance with the Government pattern. In conclusion, the bishop advised that eccentricity was a good thing. It was one of the necessities of human progress.