Rangitikei Advocate. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1909. EDITORIAL NOTES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9372, 15 February 1909, Page 4

Rangitikei Advocate. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1909. EDITORIAL NOTES.

IT is not possible for us to know the full extent of the ideas in the mind of the late Mr when he founded the scholarships at Oxford which bear his name. Mr Rhodes was an but he had an extraordinary faculty for transforming his ideas into practical schemes, and it is probable that he foresaw how great an effect the presence of Rhodes scholars at Oxford would have in promoting the union of the Empire. There is a natural tendency among those who have spent all their lives in Canada or Australasia to form ideas different from or even opposed to those held by persons who have never left Britain, while those who regard London as the central point of the Empire often have little sympathy with the views held in Toronto, Sydney, Wellington or Capetown. The extent of the Empire and the varied local interests which naturally occupy the chief place in the minds of individual citizens, cannot fail to exert a sort of centrifugal force tending to loosen the bonds uniting the Empire. The rapid means of communication of modern times do much to keep even the most remote outposts of an Empire in tonoh with the centre, but nothing can take the place of personal intercourse as a means of removing misconceptions. The colonial who pays a visit to Britain, unless he is particularly unfortunate in his experiences, returns home a stronger Imperialist than before and similarly the Briton who makes a tour of the colonies is ever afterwards enthusiastic in defence of the rights of his fellow citizens across the sea. It is obviously out of the question that all the inhabitants of the different portions of the Empire should be brought in personal contact with one another and the best alternative is that men who are likely to hold positions of influence should have the opportunity of making themselves acquainted with the ideas of other parts of the Empire. The bequest of Mr Rhodes will produce this result in a very marked manner. The holders of Rhodes’ scholarships are the pick intellectually and physically of the youth of the country from which they come, and they may be expected to take a high place among and exercise a wide influence on their fellow men. After three years spent at Oxford among representatives of all tnat is best in English life and tin daily association with other Rhodes’ scholars from every parts of the British Empire, those who enjoy the benefits of the Rhodes’ foundation may be expected to be deeply imbued with' the Imperial idea and to prove worthy missionaries of closer union. It does not matter yery much whether the New Zealand scholars return to the land of their birth or not, though we should like them to find a congenial sphere of work in their native land. Wherever they may be they will never forget New Zealand and the forty or fifty Rhodes* scholars from this country who, when the scheme has been working for some time, will he alive at one time, will form a valuable element among the leaders of thought in every department of life.

WE are apt to think of “nerves’' as a modern complaint, and 'many authorities are inclined to put down most of the evils of these times to ; the nervous overstrain produced by the rush of modern life. It ; seems quite possible, however, that nerves existed in past ages gwith much the same results as to-day, but as no name had been discovered to explain those manifestations, which are now credited to nervous disease, we are led to believe that nervous disorders are a product of advanced civilisation. When we |read of. the doings of the irresponsible rulers of past ages we put down the crimes committed to the criminal character of their authors. But it may plausibly be urged that most of these men led lives which could have no other effect than|to produce such a state of what we now call “nerves” as to give quite a simple explanation of their apparently atrocious crimes. Nero is generally held up ,as a monster of”iniqnity, and it is quite possible that even if he had attended a kindergarten when young and afterwards gone in for a course of nature study and manual training of the most approved kind he would still have been hardly a suitable member for a young men’s Christian Association. Yet when he was master of the world, with no one to prevent him from eating and drinking what he chose or from taking whatever other unwholesome pleasures he was inclined to, it is likely enough that he suffered from extreme irritability. Unfortunately he could indulge his irritability as he chose. If he ordered a senator or a few dozen Christians to bo killed they were killed, and the ailments which to-day would lead to a doctor’s advising a visit to Hornbourg or Rotorua or some form of rest cure were followed in the days

of Imperial Rome by actions which have gained for Nero a quite nnparalleled reputation for crime. No doubt there was some advantage in living when no one was aware of nerves. Just now the mechanism of nerves is supposed to control the mind of man; and our minds are over interested in that mechanism which unfortunately is likely to go wrong in those who think about it too much. If we realise that the symptoms we note are not a sign of an unprecedented degeneracy in our times, but only a new form token by an old weakness we shall be less afraid of it than we are. We may have lost seme secret that men knew in the middle ages, but not any secret of health or happiness that they possessed. We like to be made miserable about ourselves, but not about those who have long been dead. We know nothing of their morbid symptoms, and therefore, assume that they had none. Very likely in ages to come when our literature, full of dreary forebodings, has been forgotten, a legend will arise that the twentieth century was the real golden age when all men were happy and life had no dark side.