EMPHASIS ON VIRTUE OF WORK

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 72, 17 December 1938, Page 12

EMPHASIS ON VIRTUE OF WORK

Address By Mr. Hislop

TECHNICAL COLLEGE BREAK-UP

“You cannot get more from the community, more from the country, than is produced by it,” said the Mayor of Wellington, Mr. T. C. A. Hislop, when emphasizing the virtue of work in his address at tlie annual breaking-up ceremony of the Wellington Technical College last night. The chairman of the board of governors, Mr. W. Appleton, presided. “The essential principle of all development at the baek of the community being able to get more and more things which are desired is the necessity for hard, continuous and intelligent work,” Mr. Hislop said. “Sometimes we are inclined to forget that principle. We sometimes think, if some of us get more for a period, that all is well aud that something new has occurred in the world, that though effort is not increased productivity is increased. But it is not so.”

Referring to the doctrine of worlr, Mr. Hislop said that anything worth getting, and worth having, was worth working for. People could get nothing as a group or as a community unless hard work was devoted to the getting of it. The greatest developments in civilization had almost in every case come as the result of the work of one or two brilliant brains, working not for money or personal aggrandizement but just for personal love of the particular science in which they might be concerned. Pursuit of Truth. “It is just as well to remember that while most of us work bard and must always do so,” Mr. Hislop continued, “the greatest things have come and will continue to come from the application of the brains and minds of men of outstanding ability in pursuit of truth and who in that way make available the product of their work to the rest of the community. The greatest thing of all that will help you who are going out into the world and those who will later go out is to develop a spirit of work and devotion to the job you are doing, 'to abide by the rules and to build up strength of character so that you will have nothing at any time on your consciences of which you can feel ashamed.”

Mr. Hislop referred to the fact that this time next year the Centennial .Exhibition would have opened in Rongotai. “There you will see the results of 100 years’ work and development in this community of New Zealand,” be said. “There you will see representations of early forms of technical appliances, working up to the most modern and up to date, the triumph of man’s work. They will be of interest and a great inspiration to you.”