NATIONAL SERIOUSNESS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 496, 1 May 1909, Page 7

NATIONAL SERIOUSNESS.

I As -President of >tho British Science Guild, 2JV. was the principal speaker at Hie third annual meetiiig held at the Mansion House ' under the chairmanship of/the Lord:Mayor:of Loiidon. A distinguished company assembled on the': platform. /The British Science Guild, said Mr. Haldaje, was coMQaratively small, but it was cnorgtfep.-and pertinacious. The importance of- the. cfccfcrnie whidlr they preached was aa L m n!u e ;^ y , nc^c>n as it. was dsewheri. lhey_ had much way to mafce, and Mo'osemona of ■tha ,people as a united people wora neccssary if they wero to hold their own .ra the stress: of competitioni of nations',* ' It the work of the guild was the intellectnal dewslipraoift ?of : ;the nation. This was' misswhary enterprise, but it was only one form 'of /missionary: enterprise. ' Intellect counted' for much, but he was not sure that charactor did not count for more ; "People a T e realiswg, ho. continued, that hesven and heflajifco begin in this. world,; and-that thosoul. cinnot bo stprcd apart- from the body lam not sure Chat the passion for Epo rt quite aa garcafc aii evil'ft tlris country aa the msswn for drrnk. What we need, above J tilings, is to become a serious nation There a ' too muci of .the spirit of things' which feakos popplo say, ' Wohavefnlfilfed our dut fhen wo have fulfilled ourlegal obligations ' " It soemod to him. that the training tint seemod to bo best; for puttie lr£o the classical training of tho universities; but he had nover failccr to observe that, token bv itself, it was directive. No Cambridgemathematician to-doj could do his work eom-.pleteb'-uidoss he was familiar with not oho" ptitifcw® or thrco modern' languages. Little encouragement was given to the: British officer in the politic schools 'to. master foreign languages j and the result was that thoycould' not get him to take iip langnagos at SandHurst or any of tho sta-ff colleges as they would wish to do. They were doing their best to remedy the evil, but the root of it [ lay with the public-schools.