Duke Criticises The "Smugly Satisfied”

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28429, 8 November 1957, Page 15

Duke Criticises The "Smugly Satisfied”

(Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON. Nov. 7. The Duke of Edinburgh, in one of his most forceful speeches he has made, last night attacked the “smugly satisfied—that great body which exercises its power by its inertia.” He was proposing a toast to the Outward-Bound Trust at a London dinner. The trust, set up in 1946, aims at providing character training through adventure for boys from all walks of life. The Duke spoke of the very satisfactory progress of the trust, “particular!}' when you think of the mass of obstacles which are always lumbered in the way of any good idea when it appears in the offing. “In my experience, there are | always 20 excellent reasons for doing nothing for every one reason for starting something, especially if it has never been done before. "I think this is particularly true of the Outward-Bound and other similar ideas.” The Duke said: “For some strange reason, it is perfectly respectable to teach history and maths, electronics and engineering, but any attempt to develop the character tends to be viewed with the utmost suspicion. “This is more remarkable be-

cause the great men of history and the great communities of history have all had exceptional strength of character and spiritual awareness. “Even so, the ignorant always manage to make fun of their achievements. “The ultimate stupidity is the suspicion of the unknown: the fear of the partly understood. It is not very difficult with cynics and destroyers only to see the bad and unhappy side of human nature and institutions. “It is very natural to get angry .with them, but that creates nothing but a sort of dull resentment.” The Duke said: “After all, boys approaching manhood cannot know much about this world, and it is too easy to frighten them into doing nothing and to persuade them that self-indulgence is the same as self-interest.” The Duke said no-one claimed that Outward-Bound was the only or necessarily the ideal answer, but it was practical, reasonably simple and cheap and. most important. it worked. The trust had found that it worked with Africans. Chinese, • Indians, and Malays, "and I see no reason why it should not work i with any group of boys anywhere in the world.”