Growing Pains

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 522, 24 June 1949, Page 5

Growing Pains

HE story of The Listener in its first ten years may be found elsewhere in this issue. A decade is a short time to be alive, even in print; but there are times when to be alive is a sort of miracle, and in its infancy The Listener had to live dangerously. It struggled as it grew: if there is virtue to be taken from conflict, the child should now have a certain toughness, Radio covers the whole of life; and this journal, if it is to reflect the interests of its readers, must speak of many things. We shall please everybody about the same time that the last criticism is made against radio

programmes, Meanwhile it is instructive to glance through the files and to see what has been attempted, what has been retained and discarded. There have been mistakes, and undoubtedly we shall make more in the future; but if features are discontinued it is because they have ceased to be valuable or practicable. The Listener has made experiments: it has reached out widely in its special field, and it has come always to the discovery that the limits to what can be done-apart from the obvious limits fixed by official status-are determined by the community it serves. In ten years there have been notable advances in broadcasting, in education; science and the arts; and they have had their influence in our pages. If there are further advances, we hope to take part in them. Growth is never comfortable, and sometimes it can be painful; but it is also an adventure. The evolution of The Listener in the next ten years will be, as it has been in the past, an essential part of the story of New Zealand. And that is a story which, in spite of the pessimists, should be worth telling.