The Daily News. FRIDAY, MAY 29, 1914. THE EVIL OF SENSATIONALISM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 9, 29 May 1914, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, MAY 29, 1914. THE EVIL OF SENSATIONALISM.

It is well .sometimes to turn away from the study of public events and devote a little time to the consideration of influences that have a hearing on individual and national life. An anonymous writer in a recent number of the Atlantic Monthly asks: "Have wo not grown over-nlert in the search for information regarding recent evils? Wo take vice with our breakfast porridgei perjury with our after-dinner colfee; our essayists vie with one another in seeing who can write up the startling story of crime," The spectacular treatment springs from a desire to startle, and ministers to the ever increasing love of the sensational. This constant glare of the searchlight upon dark places bids fair to rob us of our normal vision. The sun of noonday is clouded by graft, bribery, treachery, corruption and crime. The writer considers that with the large issues 'of individual and national wellbeing in mind, we are over-doing the exposure, and slighting the incentives to right action and emphasising the negative at the expense of the positive. "Not through loud wailings over evil can a nation be built, but through resolute dwelling with high ideals." He points out that whether or not tflir study of evil should be lessened, our study of the good needs to bo vastly strengthened. Perpetual sitting upon the ash heap and howling will not raise the walls of state. It may bo easier than setting to work on the heaven-sent task of building up, but it is the policy of despair where action alone can bo of service. The main spring of achievement is imagination—the imaginative grasp of the perfect reaching forward towards perfectness in the human beiag. "A man to be greatly good," said Shelley, "must imagine intensely and comprehensively." Faithfulness to the best and finest in the past and in the present, rather than horrified gaping at the present's worst, is the attitude that means continued and bettered life, for we become what we will. The eras of great deeds have not been tho eras of analysis, but eras when the creative imagination has been at work. That evil exists, is all too true, but that is no reason why it should be for ever brought into the limelight and kept there. Much as sciehc'cPlias done andean do for us it can never meet our deepest needs, for it has no spring to touch the will, nor can it be a substitute for:

"A sensible sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting

suns, And the round ocean, and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impel! All thinking things, all objects of all thought And rolls through all things." What we need, says the writer of the article, as wo never needed before, is ,- a broader and deeper study of philosophy, of history, and of literature. We need, moreover, an enlarged vision of history, and the sight of great men of all ages faithful to small tasks as to great; wo need the companionship of heroes of other ages and of other nations, and not of military heroes alone. We must forego no noble expression of idealistic faith, lest we impoverish our souls, and beggar those, who come afl.or us. To hold up before the ardent and impressionable young that which they may become in strength, in purity, would- surely be better than placing before them this perpetual picture show of our civic and national transgressions. Would it not be better if we were more diligent in searching history, philosophy aud literature for whatsoever things •■ are pure, whatsoever things arc lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, and in bidding the young to think on these things?" There can be hit one answer to that question—the affirmative, liifortunately, the modern system of. education is a mere stimulating machine for the intellect and the eye. There in j lid effort to strengthen the moral energy o!' the race, and the lack of moral fibre will produce serious results in the future. There is food for thought in ; abundance for those who care, but callousness runs sensationalism very hard for the pride of place in the. dominant evils of the day.