DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 19, 13 April 1927, Page 16

DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

WHAT YOU SEE WHEN YOU GO ABROAD (Copyright, 1927) I met a young lady the other day who was very much travelled. She had been to Norway and Sweden, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, France and England at various times. Yet all she could talk about was dress. She might just as well have stayed at home. It has been truly said that you see when you go abroad what you have taken with you; that is, if you have any love of art, culture, music, and so on, you will find many things that fill you with delight. If you have no appetite for the cultural objects you meet, why go and see them? There must be an urge within as well as a supply without. Reading a thousand books will be of no 'value to you unless you have the love of learning. Hearing a thousand concerts will not advance you much unless within you there is the constructive love of music. After all, any educational material is of value to you only as it educates. To Educate means to draw out, and if there is nothing to draw out, all the schools and professors and op portunities are wasted upon you. They are like seed fallen upon barren land. Only those who have struggled to improve themselves in meagre and discouraging circumstances appreciate wealth. Only those who have known poverty get a real taste . riches After all, the wealth of the world’s opportunities is intended to develop the individual man, and tall a man can hope for in the way of development must be in response to his own initiative. A little exercise taken by yourself, a game of tennis, or a long walkor cutting down trees, is of vastly more use to you than the most scientific method of massage. In the one case it is you doing something, and in the other it is some thing done to you. We grow in accordance with the things we do, not in the ratio of the things done to us. . ~ All the views and novelties exposed to the traveller throughout the world, if they are seen by a bored and listless eye, are like an abundance of fruit and meats piled on the table in front of one who is not hungryThe best sauce is appetite. That is one-half the feast. If you a rc not thirsty a drink does you no good. So if you have no craving for culture, the opportunities for culture are wasted upon you. You see, therefore, when you go abroad, in one sense, only what yon have taken with you.