HOME TRAINING

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 361, 24 October 1932, Page 3

HOME TRAINING

CHILDREN OF TO-DAY WELLINGTON MAYOR SUGGESTS LACK OF INTEREST BY PARENTS. CHARACTER 'DEVELOPMENT. The view that to a great extent parents did not teach their children nowadays the valuahle lessons which used to be taught in the home as a msitter of course was expressed hy the Mayor (Mr. T. O. A. Hislop) at the Wellington Sunday School Union's annual rally and presentation of prizes in the Town Hall on Saturday night. Mr. Hislop said it was a little difficult to know what to say to such a gathering without breaking that rule which apparently was dear, and he thought pToperly dear, to the heart of Miss Mary McLean, the examiner in the teachers' section, namely that one should go direct to the point and not tallc round the subject (laughter). — owever, one had to remember that sometimes the best way of helping forward a great movement was to go very eannily direct to a point and to prepare the ground by careful suggestion before eventually driving home the lesson. "You are to-day in your great movement doing that which was done as an every-day duty, as an every-day function, as a thing which one did without thinking about it at all' hy those who went before us, one, or perhaps two generations ago," continued Mr. Hislop. "The great question today is this: Whether those lessons which were taught as a matter of course and not as a matter of duty and which were taught in the home, are to-day permeating the community in the same way as they did in the past. One cannot help thinking that the answer is not 'yes.' Theref ore, in a time such as that of to-day it is of supreme importance that the work which is being aone by your bodies is being done amongst some, at least, of the community, and one hopes that the work you are doing is growing in its strength. I believe from what one hears of the reports of the movement that your growth is considerable, and I think that those who are to-day carrying on such movements as this are taking the place which has been deserted to a great extent by the parents, and so are making possible that development of character, and that knowledge of moral qualities which characterised us in the past and which) if we are to eontinue as a people, must characterise and be the base of our operations in the future. (Applause., It is for that reason tha feel it is a privilege to be here tonight and to' help to what little degree one is enabled to help in a movement which carries with it those basic qualities upon which alone a people may survive. (Applause.)