Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, MAY 27, 1911. THINKING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10249, 27 May 1911, Page 4

Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, MAY 27, 1911. THINKING.

One of the most difficult problems in this pleasure-iseekdng, rough i;vAtu'irible, go-as-you-please age, is that of 'inducing people to think. There are quite a number of people in most commu.iities who are aub'fl of thinking, if would only try. lh\t for some reason or anpfc l ur, chiefly the other, iliey seldom find t;me to exercise the God-given faculty of thinking. If it is in the slavery known as inaamal occupation, men and women go about (it in a mechanical sort of way, never stopping to think whether they are doing the , best possible for themselves and their employer. They are quite satisfied to let the Arbitration Court think for them, through its award; If it is m respect of business, there are not a few who postpone the day of thinking until the fourth or the twentieth of the month. In the remaining periods, they are lamenting the awfulness of existence and wondering wfaen things are going to get better. If it is in public life, nobody tliinks at all, or is supposed to think, excepting the man who is on the top, and he is constantly thinking what a lot of verdant idiots there are below. When terrestrial mattorsi are abandoned for those celestial, the same thing happens. One

man thinks for the lot. Tims is . surely not as Providence ordained. J Men and women have been given intelligence in varying degrees, that j they might exercise it. Life is not made up entirely of eating, drinking and imakang merry. There is a higher, a nobler, a better mission than ! that. There is the possibility of doing good for somebody, of improving one's self, of elevating society, of ameliorating distress, of spreading enlightenment among the people. But individuals cannot be induced to think. They dodge it as a hare dodges a hound. And all the tame their mental faculties are being impaired and impoverished. What is the cause of this deterioration, this lack of mental exercise among the people ? Is it not the development of a system of collectivism, which is I crashing out individuality and the | proper sense of personal responsibility ? Is it not the legislative spoonfeeding to which, men and women are being treated? There is something radically wrong with a people who will not stop to thank. One day there will come an awakening. It ' may then be too late. The capacity ) for thinking may be gone.