REBUILDING THE WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 March 1919, Page 5

REBUILDING THE WORLD.

ADDRESS BY CHANCELLOR BRADFORD. The Chautauqua tent was packed last night, it being stated there were about 1200 people present, to hear an address by Dr. U. H. Bradford, chancellor of Oklaliome University, on the rebuilding of the world, after the havoc wrought by the war. Without any preliminaries,* the chancellor plunged right into his subject, and gripped the attention of the audience until the final words of his peroration. He said to be truly great a nation must be great in natural resources, great in patriotism, and, above all, great in suncrowned manhood. He saw all these essentials present in the Dominion of New Zealand. The real power of a country was in the life-blood of its citizens. Brit yesterday money had ruled men; to-mor-row we must have men who will rule money and make it assist in the, development of civilisation. He was confident fhat with her wealth of resource, New Zwiland, if rightly developed, would take her proper place among the nations of the world. He stressed the value of education and work, and said ho real education would ever come to any man who was hot prepared, if necessary, to do any of the work attaching to essential things. In dealing with the question of the cost of education, the speaker said the price of education to-day was the desire for it. He was speaking not from the theory point of view, but from practical experience, and he told the story of his own early desire for education.' He was the son of a poor farmer, and being unable to find the money for his education, lie got through the university by sweeping the snow from the streets of'the city in the early morning, thereafter acting'as janitor and stoker at the university, and, by dint of perseverance, came out at the head of his class, and eventUallv was presented with the highest diploma that institution could bestow.

Continuing, the speaker told of the development in business circles of a keen sense of fitness and integrity in selecting those likely to fulfil the requirements of positions of responsibility, and in this he urged the young people to beware of their actions, as, in the belief that they were unobserved they often did things' which prejudiced their future prospects. Business men were particularly pleased if they topped the market with any particular commodity, but it was infinitely better to top the market with the Intelligence of their children. The chancellor, in referring to the matter of family worship, regretted that nowadays mdst men were too busy to spare 15 m'inutes a day from the dollar-grabbing business for the sake of having prayer with the members of their families before going about the day's concerns.

Passing on, the speaker came to the part New Zealand played in the war, and eulogised the valorous exploits of "our boys," and in doing so appealed to those who had been left at home to make tho country safe and worth while for the boys who had fought so nobly fpr liberty and justice. They had fought to make a new world and a new humanity possible. The war had taught Germany that the Anglo-Saxon people could not be conquered, and the day the Anglo-Saxons dictated the armistice that day the Anglo-Saxons became responsible for the rebuilding of the world. For this reason the education of the boys and girls was tremendously important. That work would take not a day but a generation and the children of to-dav would be the real builders of tlie new world. A community which sought to properly educate us boys and girls was putting the emphasis in the right place. The Chautauqua was a great educational movement It was not out for fun, but to co-operate with the church, the state, the college It was a movement for the high ideal The Anglo-Saxon ideal was that the big men were going to help the weak men. What the world wanted was patriots, not politicians. A patriot was a man who saw the way Hod was going and was prepared to go that way even if ,he went alone. The speaker urged his hearers to rise as patriots and live for their country as the boys at the front had died for their country Peace would never come until the principles of the Prince of Peace actuated the lives of meif The chancellor made a fine appeal at the conclusion of his address to the Anglo-Saxon people to march on and give to the world a government without war. There was a storm of applause at the conclusion of the address.