THE HOME LIFE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 4004, 1 October 1929, Page 1

THE HOME LIFE.

BEST DOR NEW ZEALAND. The benefits to be derived from the borne life were stressed by His, Excellency the Governor-General (Sir Charles Fefbusson) when speaking at the Dominion Day gathering of early settlers at Wellington.

t “I want to say a word to the descendants of the early settlers,” he said; “to the grandsons and granddaughters. Looking back on your early days don’t you realise how much you owe to your parents and to the influences of the old home I in which you were brought up. 'We | live in a different generation; in a ! generation which has quite different jdeas and which has very often ' views which, speaking for myself as far as my own father was concerned, would make him shudder. Wc must recognise that we older ones get .old-fashioned, and we must not complain if the younger . people take a different view of life. I want the younger people to realise what they owe to the old home life and its influence, which in the old days was so much stronger than it is to-day. If I was asked what the thing that caused me a little distress and anxiety, I would say, the weakening of the home ties and home influences. Where is the old family t life ’with the children and parents together, and where Jthe being fireside was the usual place, instead of being now the one place where 'families do not gather together. The old homes and the influences that sprang from them were the best and most strengthening things in the world. I want to appeal to the younger people here, and want them to realise that New Zealand was built up by the characters of the ealiy settlers. All these influences will weaken if you do not bring up your children to respect them. Let us all try to do what was done in the old days; to make children and parents companions in everything; in the house and out of doors. Do not send your children ito church; take them there, po not send them to the cinema oir theatre; take them there, i It only we could revive the old family home influences we should be doing more for the future of New Zealand than anything else we could do, and we would be paying 'the very best tribute we could to the older people who taught us how it could be done.”