PLEA FOR TOLERANCE

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 69, 14 December 1933, Page 6

PLEA FOR TOLERANCE

Scots College Principal OTHER MAN’S VIEWPOINT “There is a tendency in these days to regard old-established methods and ideas as obsolete and even definitely harmful,” said the principal of Scots College, Mr. J. R. Sutcliffe, at the annual presentation of prizes at the college last evening. “In almost every educational publication one can read articles dealing with repressions and inhibitions in the • young and new methods of education to deal with them,”>he continued. “Perhaps the writers are correct; I do not know. I can only state that I have a respect amounting to veneration for the great schools of the Old Country, and as long as I am associated with this school I shall try, within the exacting limits imposed on us, to model it on them. “I believe that this school is working along the rsjit lines to turn out a good type of citizen, and I am encouraged by the knowledge that, in the struggle for employment which our young men unfortunately have to face, Scots College old boys seem‘to have little‘difficulty in obtaining coveted posts often from very large fields. “Whether you boys are prize-winners .or not, I want you to remember this, that until you have learnt the lesson of tolerance you cannot say. you are educated. One of the highest aims of education and one of the most difficult to attain is that ability and will-power to appreciate the other fellow’s point of view. ■ Intolerance breeds suspicion, and suspicion of our neighbours, whether across the fence or across the seas, will always be a source of friction and unhappiness: “I do not imagine that you boys will ever be guilty of religious intolerance, from which I fear our country is not guiltless, for although this is nominally a Presbyterian Church school, it welcomes boys of all denominations in its classrooms, and there and in your sports you meet boys of every major religious denomination in the land and learn to appreciate their true worth. “But you must learn to carry tolerance further, into your business and politics and every phase of your lives. It is this failure to appreciate the other man’s viewpoint that is setting nation against nation at the present time. If one country suggests some new means of alleviating the world’s troubles, economic, military or otherwise, the others seem to bristle with suspicion and to search for ulterior motives behind its well-meant efforts. “It is suspicion born of intolerance which has given rise to feelings amounting to hatred between two members of our British Commonwealth over the interpretation of the rules of a game. The same cause has led a representative of the people of this country to question the use to which one of our customers may put the waste'product she buys from us. “You must remember that the world is not made up of saints and sinners, but of people with a capacity for both good and bad, but who, in the main, if giveii a little encouragement, would gladly conform to Bracken’s prayer to ‘draw a little closer to one another and be understood.”’ •<