CASUAL COMMENTS

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19736, 28 September 1929, Page 13

CASUAL COMMENTS

OLD AND NEW WAYS.

[By L*o Fakmjmg.]

Witchery vaits by the lonely w-ij*, With aott-eyed ghocta of other day#; And down eld paths where young went, Faith with her open testament Walks with Love through the gold and gray* J-M old-time ways, dear old-time ways, The look in his face of Jong-gone Mays. —Madison Cawcin in "Far Away &nd Never Near." When a man is old enough to remember well the ways of other days, but is not too old for an active interest in the new order, life can have for him a very pleasant richness, even if his deposits and withdrawals at the bank cause no excitement in financial circles. * * # When I began this column my pen promised to rush quickly to the end, for no writer could wish for an easier subject than "Old and New Ways." There was only one difficulty; the matter was too easy; it had too many lines on which thought could run. Just ponder a few momenta on the possibilities —old and new courtship, old and new dances, old and new toys, old and new joys, eld and new friends, old and new foods, old and new fads, old and new books, old and new philosophies, old and new polities, eld and new transport, old and new Saturdays, old and new Sundays. Well, is it not like setting out to write a brief history of humanity? * * * Of course, those old paths mentioned by Madison Cawein would be bordered with lavender and rosemary, and all about would be a wildness of foliage and flowers —the old-fashioned wildness against which the hand and aFt of modern gardening are sternly set. And what of the lovers in that fragrant garden of other days? Perhaps shyly holding hands and exchanging glances of an almost timid tenderness. Occasionally there were rapid runs to the altar, but courtship was usually a gradual and sedate process, with much anxiety and anguish in one heart or the other or in both, before the "Mr" and the ««Miss" melted under love's torch into the Christian names. But to-day things go at a greater gallop. If one can believe the comic papers, a girl may be engaged to "Bill" before she knows his surname, And next day "Bill" may be discarded, and the loving heart will be handed to "Tom." However, the . marriage statistics are much the same now as they were many years ago. *• -* *- Bome clergy evidently believe that this age is mainly notable for a pleasure-eraae, but one way and another the world is working very hard, very keenly, and very importantly to-day. Behind the scenes of jollity and jazz, business is keener than ever. The standards of serviee are being constantly raised. * ■*■ -A Consider the newspapers, for example. Look into an old file dating well baek to the horse epoch. It was enough then to put up one colourless heading or two over three or four columns of a solid report—slabs of unfeatured type. The public then bad the time and patience for a close reading pf long chronicles, There were not so many cheap books and magazines, not many "shows" in town, no radio, no motors. A man could settle down with his pipe for a very long seance with his newspaper—but things are very different to-day. The journalists have to be as resourceful »8 the makers of patent medicines and beautifying powders and pastes in set? ting their news before the hurry-scurry readers. * * * Old Saturdays when the city shops had not the half-holiday! I have a very vivid memory of near-by bushybearded farmers who came to town early in the morning with cart-loads of live poultry or young pigs for the aue. tion yards. They based themselves on cosy inns, which had space for carts and horses. They had some very merry hours in the afternoon and evening, and drove home singing. Those Saturday nights, with the bars open until 11 o'clock, were full of sound, mixed with some fury. Saturday nowadays is not a very serious working time for thousands of business men, The short morning is a kind of hasty preparation for the weekend. A shrewd person does not try to make business appointments for Saturday morning- In the afternoon the only movement in the City streets is of persons hurrying outward. #• * * Opportunism has alwayß been a feature of politics, but there is inevitably more of it in modern times. All parties elaira that their houses are fixed firmly on deep-set granite foundations of principle, but they are all obliged to give heed to changing faneies and notions of the public. There is a tendency among modern politicians to play on the surface of things and to take short views in national avenues, A retired editor remarked to me that many years ago, when current affairs did not furnish him with a subject for an easy editorial, he could always turn to Hansard. "The statesmen in those days," he said, "always dug into their subjects. They read widely and deeply. They marshalled facts and figures from the best sources. Hansard was a most useful bulwark for the journalist." Today the journalist is rather the bulwark for Hansard. * * #

Old Party issues of New Zealand politics have mostly gone. What will be the new ones? will the tariff—'the question of a strong encouragement of Jfew Zealand manufacturing industries —be the main dividing line in future? New Zealand has reached its present position of development principally on the policy of a maximum export of primary produce. Is that the nest policy for the New Zealand of, say, a halfcentury or a century hence? Must the old way af national living be modified by a new way? These are hard questions to answer, but they will have to be studied some day. ■* * * Some of the new ways in education are not as good as the old ways. The old systems had their defects, of course, but they gave a good grounding in necessary subjects. To-day some "authorities" have a stupid doctrine against "learning by rote." Even the alphabet, in some schools, is eut out of the rote course. Why? If ever there is a time when it is beneficial for the young folk to learn as much as possible by rote, it is in the early years of school lire, when the tablets of memory can take a permanent impress easily. Think of soft concrete. It is easy to make marks on it with the tip of a feather, but the hard stuff calls for a chisel. Well, the young human brain is like that soft concrete. That is one reason why various religious bodies are having schools of their own.