Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1908. YOUTHFUL ENTERPRISE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43374, 17 September 1908, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1908. YOUTHFUL ENTERPRISE.

this above all—to thine own self be true, And it must follow as the night the day Thou canst not then he false to any man Shakespeare.

Our young people are sometimes accused of being too much given over to sport, and too little addicted to recreations of a more improving nature. As it vrould appear that there is ground for the accusation, (though we are not saying that it is peculiar to our New Zealand youth) it is all the more refreshing to find that, unknown to the Dominion at large, three southern youths have been assiduously applying themselves to the pursuit of scientific enterprise. Stimulated by that genuine love of a highly complicated and delicate branch of electrical research which could characterise only those with whom the subject was a hobby, these boys have perfected their appliances to such a degree as to be able to communicate with other Marconi, signalling stations at a distance of one hundred and eighty miles, supposing such stations existed. The boys being Dunedin boys, it would appear that Dunedin not content with carrying off the most Rhodes Scholarships intends to distinguish herself in other ways also. For it is a noteworthy achievement on the part of the young electricians to have picked up communication from sd far away as Foveaux Strait, as they have done. It may be rem( mbered by some of our readers who have visited the Thames School of Mines that there has been an installation there. But interesting as that is to those who have been able to see it, it is admittedly a much more noteworthy for these lads to have worked away patiently and industriously for two years at their beloved object, making it the darling of their leis '.re, and at last to have come to light with an accomplished dream. This coming at a time when the Marconi system has been arousing special interest on account of its recently instanced utitity in connection with the visit of the American Fleet, should provide an additional stimulus, and hasten the installation of a thoroughly up-to-,

date signalling station for the Dominion.

The extension of the Marconi system to all branches of shipping is a matter the importance of which can not be too much insisted upon. The sad and disastrous cases of unrecorded marine casualties, which from time to time serve to fill the columns of the missing ship list at Lloyd’s would be much reduced in number- were it made universally practicable to communicate with vessels in distress or to receive communications from them. The '4 living air” is alive in a more literal sense than we commonly consider. And by a system which practically annihilates distance it remains for the immediate future to see unechoing wastes of ocean converted into a whispering gallery, where no boat shall drift beyond ken or help, and where no disabled steamer need carry a starving thirst maddened crew to unrecorded death.

It is highly gratifying to hear that such an achievement has gladdened parents and friends who, during a period of patient enterprise, helped the three youths by their interest and supplemented their efforts with material help. We congratulate ourselves that we have young people in our midst who possess the initiative to undertake such things, and hope that we shall yet hear of others who will follow their example in the realms or original undertakings of whatsoever serviceable sort.