NEEDS OF YOUTH.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 63, Issue 309, 9 October 1943, Page 6

NEEDS OF YOUTH.

CHECKING DRIFT INTO CRIME. BOY SCOUTS’ OPPORTUNITY 1 (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 8. j The danger of optimistic complacency based on annual reports and statements of accounts was emphasised by the Dominion Chief Commissioner (Mr H. C. Christie) when addressing the annual meeting of the New Zealand Boy Scouts’ Association at Wellington to-day. There were in New Zealand about SS.OOO boys of scout age. Of them IS,OOO were scouts he said. What of the other 70,000? “We have in our hands one of the best, if not the best, of secular systems of youth training ever devised,” said Mr Christie. “It has the goodwill of all civilised countries, and that goodwill brings us in New Zealand all the financial backing that our work requires.” It was a system that the boy accepted of his own volition.-Too many boys were left unassociated with any youth organisation. This group represented at once a problem and a responsibility. The problem of finding leaders fully to replace those on active service would have to be solved before there was plenty of room in the scout movement for these boys. Evidence of the need for such a movement came from magistrates and other men in touch with the problems of juvenile crime and depravity. “Bad as the criminal aspect of the case is,' it is unimportant compared with the state of moral depravity, especially of a sexual nature, into which this country has run in recent years. Legislation cannot better the position except to the extent that it might prevent the sale of goods providing immunity from the dire results of sexual licence,, and it is doubtful if such a deterrent would work much good. It might even bring worse results,” said Mr Christie. “I do know that evil is there, and I feel it can be eradicated only by correct upbringing and instruction of our boys and girls. “The true value in man lies in ability to choose between right and wrong and strength of character to act on that choice. These things are not inherent or self-acquired. They come only from training. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with New' Zealand boys. They are splendid fellow's, full of life, but they must have an outlet for their energies. If this is not provided they get into trouble and are likely to drift into crime and worse. Our educational system is good; our teachers are fine men; but the fact stares us in the face that neither physical fitness nor education in the technical sense, nor both together, are sufficient to ensure that a boy shall grow up aright. Something more is required, and that scouting provides.”