TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 261, 3 November 1932, Page 6

TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

A CANDID CRITIC. (By PRO BONO PUBLIOO.) Most of the visitors to New Zealand whose "views" are published seem very anxious to flatter us and our country, and it was refreshing, therefore, to have a quietly critical talk recently from an Englishman who came up to spend the weekend with us. He had been long enough in the country to have formed useful impressions, and as Ihis interest was rather in peoj>le than in scenery, he had. been observing what we were and did and not merely where we lived. Hβ told me that he found New Zealanders as a people more than a little vain in a shallow way. "If a man has a good opinion of himself," he said, "he will try to live up to it, and that is greatly to be desired. But it isn't that you have a good opinion of youreelves that makes me think you vain. You think you have nothing to learn, or at least that no one else can teach you anything. You are so very hospitable and so courteous, as a rule, that this weakness is the more noticeable when it conies out." I asked him if he thought our vanity might be due to our long run of prosperity. "Quite likely it is," he replied. And then after a pau'se he continued: "Perhaps *Jiere is a defect in your educational outlook. Yes, I am sure there must be, because you are very impatient in many ways. ■Now in England -we "have a background of; a thousand years of civilisation. Our people have passed through terrible periods of depression. If you think of the dreadful plagues that used to i-age, the Black Death, for instance, you will realise that the nation has been sorely afflicted. The Wars of the Rosea were another dreadful experience. You probably think of the Tudor period as one of rapid economic progress. But actually it was one long period of disturbance and affliction. Then came the Civil Wars, the plague and the great fire of London. Again and again the nation .must have been on the verge of bankrujrfcey. In the eighteenth century it certainly was bankrupt. What I mean is that again and again in history the conditions of life must have been appallingly bad, and yet recovery came in its turn. It wae not until the Victorian era that England knew anything of peace and prosperity.

"Well, the result of all this experience is that people go about their daily business without fuss and without really complaining. They know it is no use getting worked up. They are never pessimistic, because they feel that things will come right for them. Then they live simply. Most of them are thrifty, and that makes for contentedness and happiness. Your people are not thrifty. They spend everything they earn and they get dreadfully into debt. They are not content to be comfortable; they want to be millionaires in a hurry.

"English people arc not just complacent. Tliey have real courage. It will 'be no new thing for 't'heni to have to make a fresh etart—and they will make- it. You have many people of the- same sort here, but you liave also many who are impatient and easily depressed. New Zealand was peopled by emigrants who !had the English temperament, and eo I think that the children should have it also. Then it must be in your schools that they lose it. Probably your schools lack the quiet atmosphere and your teachers -are not themselves patient. I can think of no other explanation"

I told him my own opinion that tho development of high schools was on mistaken lines, and that- far too many boys and girls were given a smattering of mathematics and languages and literary subjects. "Then you are trying to. do too much," ho said, "and doing nothing well. You must be giving your young people false ideals and a -wrong outlook. That must tend to encourage them to live beyond their means and to have desires that they cannot always satisfy."

I mention-ed our national borrowing. "Yes," he eaid, "that would operate in the same direction. But it is patience that you most lack. — .patience and a proper sense of your own human values."