WHAT ARE WE TO DO WITH OURSELVES?

Temuka Leader, Issue 1875, 6 April 1889, Page 2

WHAT ARE WE TO DO WITH OURSELVES?

TO THE EDITOR,

Sib, —The conclusion you have come to, that I don’t object to the natural affection for offspring, is correct, I object to nothing that is natural. Love for our children is an instinct we have in common with the lower animals. It is at best a mage" animal instinct—only a little betler than self-love. All our instincts are natural within certain limits; perverted they constitute the evils we want to eradicate. We don’t love our children less by loving mankind more. Love is a divine attribute of Nature ; the more we give of it, the more we retain. It is by the act of bestowing that we increase our store. The question What are we to do with our boys? is the issue of a perverted natural instinct. When they cease to be boys we wont require to kick them out. We will leave the world to them, and the question for us is, What are we to do with ourselves ? otherwise, What are we to do toward removing the wrongs that exist? Reiteration of their existence is of no avail. *We all know that the field of labor is narrowing, and that penury and consequent suffering is increasing, but apparently there are very few of us able to reason a posteriori. is a general deficiency of the of causality, hence the numerous chimerical propositions for ameliorating human woe. If we want to remedy the evils, we must go to the root thereof. It is no netf discovery that the love of money ia the root of all evil—yet it is a truth but little thought of. The poor, cringeing thing that crawls to his oppressors as if he owed them a debt of gratitude for robbing him of his share of the blessings a bountiful Providence bestows, and the rich fool . who is flattered through lack of intelligence to perceive that it is his position and possessions that get homage, and not himself, are alike to blame for the perpetuation of this root of evil. With sound education men would not perpetuate the anomalies that exist. This leads to some reflections on another common, widespread fallacy concerning education. Persons that get a certain amount of training in schools and colleges are generally supposed to he educated. There is nothing more erroneous. There are thousands who have got all that schools and colleges could cram into them who are as ignorant as those who are quite illiterate. Por want of a more proper expression to convey/ what I mean, allow me to say thdd scholastic training ia a very useful preliminary adjunct to education. But education is mental culture, acquisition of mind, getting brains, sir—brains that money cannot buy. Henniker Heaton didn’t buy poor Dennis’s brains; he only borrowed them—like the jackdaw with the peacock’s feathers. Indeed, it' would be more appropriate to say that Dennis borrowed Henniker Heaton. Men are so infatuated in worshipping the Golden Calf. When the rich man speaks they will listen and applaud, even when his words convey no more than the sound that proceeds from beating an empty cask, whilst, swinelike, they only grunt at the pearls the poor man scatters; and by speaking and writing through that empty tub • Mr Dennis accomplished more than he otherwise could have done. There is no surreptitious way of getting brains; they can only be acquired by honest labor. Here is a field of labor wide ensugh for all—a field yielding a wealth of which we cannot be deprived. We want to direct our boys and girls to that field. You say we

(have no right to rail at owners of large estates; they mind their in- ■ terests well, and make use of their opportunities. I wont rail at them. They are like drunkards asleep on the j brink of a precipice, or on top of a y powder magazine with a lighted fuse attached. They cannot stem the mighty waves of advancing They rave and howl at socialism, or T any other ism, but still it moves. If they could be aroused from their somnolence, and persuaded to quit their fool’s paradise, they would avert a terrific doom.—l am, etc., Wm. L. Duncan. Ivakahu Bush, March 28th, 1889,