“TO GROW AS A PERSON, NEVER STOP LEARNING”

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28514, 18 February 1958, Page 2

“TO GROW AS A PERSON, NEVER STOP LEARNING”

“To grow as persons we must never stop learning; to learn we must ask questions, yet the sad thing is that so many adults have stopped asKing questions for fear of being thought ignorant,” said Miss K. Holthusen, general programme secretary of the Y.W.C.A. in New Zealand, at a meeting of the Christchurch Federated Business and Professional Women's Club last evening. Miss Holthusen, who was speaking on the recent Y.W.C.A. Advanced Leadership Training Seminar in Melbourne, was quoting the director of the seminar, Mrs Loucks Elliott of New York. All problems needed to be faced with an open mind, but not a mind open at both ends, according to the director. Revise Knowledge People who were willing to learn by facing up to their own problems and shortcomings first, would be all the more ready to accept the opinions of others and to co-operate towards a common goal For real growth, a person should never become settled at any stage of intellectual or spiritual development, the seminar was told. It was important to revise what was known today in the light of tomorrow. “In a democracy these fundamental principles apply at all times and in all walks of life, if we are willing to recognise them as individuals, in the family, at work, in committees and clubs, in the community and in the world, one nation with another,” Miss Holthusen said. Right Spirit

A series of talks on the United Nations and its specialised agencies brought home to the seminar that it was the spirit in which people lived and met together and their sensitivity to the needs of others which made or marred relationships at the personal, local or international level, she said.

Beginning with the home, Miss Holthusen said that a family with a too dominant father usually produced disobedient children, perhaps “bodgies” and “widgies.” Where there was love instead of domination a family became a real unit. With the right spirit,

through the right leadership, sympathetic understanding of the other person, each individual would grow. Miss Holthusen said that the United Nations would really become the dream that men hoped for and the fear of war would recede, when nations lost their fear of each other and had faith in one another instead. “It was in faith and understanding that we met and worked together at the seminar. We grew quite miraculously, taking part in discussions, drama, music, movement and field visits with the verve of the young child learning to walk,” she said. “Such was the leadership, that everyone had a share in everything.” “Our programme grew as each one of us took our share in putting these principles into practice. We were told that principles without programme were as useless as braces without trousers. Our programme had braces and trousers and—most important of all—it had plenty of elastic,” Miss Holthusen said.