South Canterbury Times. TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1882.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2846, 9 May 1882, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1882.

It has long been the fashion to limit the arts too much. The fine arts have been, in the estimation of a good many people, made 100 much of in the past, and allowed to take too high a place in the economy of the civilised world. There is one which has not been valued highly enough as an art. It is the art of money making.. It is customary to regard this as sordid ; as unworthy a place among arts ; to consider, it a mere question of routine ; the faculty for which was not to be spoken of in the, same breath with genius or even with talent. Yet a little consideration will proVe to everybody’s satisfaction that the faculty for moneymaking is not unworthy to be regarded as in the same category with genius. For it is a talent, per se. Looking round the circle of his acquaintance everyone perceives that are some men who, with an easy superiority, go on leisurely picking up the sovereigns; others who, by dint of constant work, contrive to ’ make a profit" out of 1 every transaction in which they are engaged ; others again who seem quite unable, do what they will, to make money. These three classes, respectively, represent genius, talent, and incompetency/ Among the last are to be found some of our hardest and most efficient workers. But they are only workers. They are altogether destitute of the faculty for making money. Now, if this talent enables one man to tower above his fellow men, as doe» excellence in any other art, it is equally entitled to rank among the arts. With what consummate skill some men make a profit out of everything that comes within their reach, and how prompt to seize an opportunity, as an artist to catch a subject, or a poet to be struck with an idea ! Why then should it be doomed to perpetual obscurity ? It ought rather to be put; forward for cultivation. It was fashionable to depreciate it, and this depreciatory view was at the bottom of the education which many of us received in days gone by. Trade was voted infra duj. We have seen the error of our ancestors’ ways in this respect and have learned to regard the art of making money as one not to be lightly ignored ; but, rather as a most practical means of attaining eminence and comfort. If the acquisition of money gives power and preeminence, and the opportunity for doing good in the world, why should it be persistently ignored and relegated to the limbo of things unworthy? It is very certain that in the | present age it is the one thing needful to success in life ; without the possession of which the most eminent ability, the highest gifts are as naught; ithc pursuit which engages all men’s attention, and which is bringing for- : ward a new aristocracy. If this ho , .really the case, why shall we indoctrinate the rising generation with the false views of it which were inculcated a few years ago ? We must conclude . that the art of making money is, like

every other, a talent ; and as things now are it is, one which must be rated at its proper value, and to which the attention of the rising generation ought to be directed. To admit this means the 'choking down of our feelings and surrendering tradition to fact. But in other things we have to do the same, and why, therefore, hesitate about it in this ? The faculty may exist, and be cultivated without meanness or penuriousness ; and in this age, when a man’s commercial status is his chief recommendation, our youth'must be taught its value, and eminence in it properly regarded as due to a talent which was worthy to be called genius, as in the faculty of the poet or the artist.