THE JUVENILE INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5156, 1 October 1877, Page 3

THE JUVENILE INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.

(From the Melbourne Arrjus, 18th inst. The project of a Juvenile Industrial Exhibition has been taken up with a good deal of enthusiasm at Ballarat, and on Friday the plan was formally brought under the notice of the Melbourne public. The object is to obtain visible proof of the industry and the ingenuity of our Australian youth, and to honor and to encourage the workers amongst them. The proficiency of the rising generation in outdoor sports we well know, for crowds weekly, assemble to witness their, prowess in football and cricket,- and the exhibition will afford them an opportunity of demonstrating their progress in the more real departments of life. That the exhibition will excite a lively interest there is no doubt, for every colonist is anxious to know how the native born generation is likely to acquit itself in the industrial, race. Working with imported labor is nothing. There can be little of substantial and permanent prosperity in Australia in any direction unless the Australians are able and eager to emulate the parent race in invention and in vigor. The spirit which the youth of Ballarat has shown in preparing for the proposed competition is a good sign, and it may be hoped that the enterprise will find equal favor with the young people of Melbourne, without whose cordial co-opera-tion *tho exhibition cannot possibly be a success. At Ballarat the employers of labor have afforded every facility to their apprentices to exhibit, and no doubt the rule will bo carried out here, for wordly wisdom alone dictates such a course. Emulation, which operates powerfully wherever it can bo : exerted, is brought into play, and the competitor who takes part in an industrial exhibition is a good deal more likely to become a skilled and painstaking workman than one who idly stands apart. Ambition to shine in the industry is evoked, and such an ambition is one to be sedulously cultivated. Wo are all agreed that steady daily work is the best cure for

larrikinism; aild that It is the only way to make a community prosperous and powerful; Not much-harm is likely to befall a nation of workers, and the" great value of the proposed Juvenile Exhibition, and the reason that it may be heartilly wished : success,_ and that am appeal may be made to the public to support it, is that it dignifies work, makes it attractive, and teaches the youngthat labor is not only man’s necessity, but his pride. ’ The Ballarat committee will do well to let the details of their scheme be as widely known as possible, and we hope to -find it as free from restrictions as may be found practicable. The mistaken notion in Victoria is that industry and ingenuity are confined to the factories of the towns. '