THE WEEK, THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9134, 6 July 1908, Page 6

THE WEEK, THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

(By Frank Morton.)

• Thb Efc'ORMiTY op Law, Cobts.—And thb Public Tbust.—Mr Tatk and the Adolescb m. —A Local Application.

Mr Justine Edwards has been protesting against the amount of legal costs incurred over the winding-up of a small estate in the north. "It is really appalling," he said, "that out of a small estate of £1,400, nearly £3OO should have been swallowed up in legil costs." Well, it is. it'is also somewhat late in the day to rail against the exorbitance of lawyers. All legal costs are rather appalling, don't ynu think? By comparison with litigation, horse-racing is a modest and frugal game. Mr Justice Edwards makes a final comment. "It is a very great pity that people are allowed to make a trade cut of executorships. If the work i& to be done, tie Public Trust is there to do it." As to that, a good many peoph in New Zealand will wag their heads in doubt. The Public Trust is one of those institutions, perfect in theory, which are held to sustain and embellish the glory of this democracy. The Public Trust, perfectly conducted and administered, working under perfect conditions in a perfect world, woul.l be a pjrfectly admirable institution. lam not here to deny that the PubPe Trust may even be an admirable institution now. But t lere can be no doubt —absolutely no ouhfc whatever—that the Public Trust has defects. There is the defect of slowness. Thus there has aris .n to l.aunt sume desperate people the theory that when the Public Trust has to wind-up an estate, that estate will only be wound-up at the Greek kalends. I don't know why this should be so. But I do know, and a gobd many other people know, that some of the officers of the Trust are not by any means the most capable men that could be secured for the positions they fill. There are round men/wriggling and snarling in square holes in a place or two. Great responsibilities are thrust on men essentially too small for great responsibilities. Some of the men have been appointed for political reasons, or for reasons personal to politicians; and this is emphatically one of the departments in which no political consideration should be effective in any appointment. Mr F. Tate, Director of Eduf-ation

in Victoria, has just made a tour of the world, with his eyes open. He returns to express his conviction that ■with regard to Education, Australians are "one of the most coservative

and reactionary of peoples." He complains that Australia does not provide the facilities for higher education freely granted in other countries. It may be taken in regard to these remarks, Mr Tate would make no exception in favour of New Zealand. It cannot be pretended that our schools are better taught or our universities better conducted than the schools and universities of Australia. But the significant paragraph in Mr TaW's recent report to his Government —the paragraph which seems to me to be of special interest here just How—is this : .'*' Will any student of our social life fry that we are a wise and far-seeing people, when he finds that we make almost no provision forithe education of our boys and girls during the adolescent period, but leave them to the unregulated and uncertain forces of society at a time when they are most susceptible to temptation, and in most need of control and guidance? Making all allowances, for those who are being educated in secondary and primary schools, there are fully 30,000 others, boys and girls, in Melbourne and suburbs, who are between fourteen and seventeen years of age. There is only one educational establishment supported by the Sitate which offers any provision for the needs of the large number of boys and girls—the Working Men's Collage. Is it any wonder that so many

of our young people have their minds ! filled with the sport of the season, cricket, football, and racing, to ths exclusion of everything else, even in their work hours? No one will deny that interest in true sport may be a most desirahle thing; but an efficient people cannot be built up under our present conditions." This se?ms to me to be a very clear statement of what I take to be a very grievous case. Young people in the older lands have the constant education and stimulus of ancient traditions and historical associations; they are moulded, generally to their benefit, by the pressure of great populations. jThey have, as a fact unquestionable, much more numerous and various interests in life than are enjoyed by the youth of a young and unformed country. |There is great enthusiasm for sport among the English youth; but I never saw any positive mania for sport, comparable to the football mania in New Zealand and the cricket mania at certain seasons in Australia. But Mr Tate's point applies in a number of ways. At the Public Library here, the books in demand are all bonks of fiction of the slighter and sillier sort. And it must be borne in mind that the reading public —the public that has sufficient interest in literature and the spiritual side of things to belong to a library at all —is but a small section of the general public. The average young man of New Zealand does not read. It's a pity. Reading maketh a full man; and without reading no man was ever full, in that sense.. If we ark to make stable and strong the foundations of this democracy, something must be done for <he proper education of adolescents.