LOOKOUT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 953, 15 November 1957, Page 11

LOOKOUT

Sir,- Messrs Sime and McEntee complain that one particular speaker has had more thane his fair sharé of the Lookout broadcasts, and your defence is that he has spoken three times out of ten, up to the end of October. One might think that you have proved their point. Lookout is so valuable a forum that it is a pity that it .should be monopolised by newspaper editors and university lecturers. No academic qualifications are essential to an editor’s appointment, and the record shows that he seldom has any. He is primarily a commercial manager and an administrator, occupations which do not necessarily require impartiality, erudition, or the capacity for, calm reflection. His opinions may be worth hearing, but that is accidental rather than incidental. We are so accustomed to our daily mentors that we forget that they are all self-appointed. The university lecturer is a man who reads and talks about the things which other men have planned and done. His knowledge is "second-hand and, certainly with the older man, it tends to be out of date. And it is so difficult for a teacher to remember that, because he is an expert in one thing, he is not an expert in everything. What can be done was shown by the Lookout talk given by the Principal of Westport Technical College, whose broadcast was the major topic of conversation last weekend. And why was it so satisfactory? He really had something fresh to say, and he confined himself ta a enhiect which he thoroughly under-

stood:

GERALD

HITCHCOX

(Wellington).