PRESENT TENDENCIES IN SOCIETY

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 70, 15 December 1939, Page 5

PRESENT TENDENCIES IN SOCIETY

Effect On Future WellBeing Of Children RETURN TO CHRISTIANITY ADVOCATED Intelligent parents could not reflect on the present, tendencies in society without feelings of alarm for the future well-being of their children, said the principal of Wellesley College, Mr. \\. 11. Stevens, at the annual prize-giving ceremony of the college in Wellington last night. The dominance of the •‘mob-mind’ so obvious in politics, in sport and in recreation generally, was being felt in education too; lie said. Unfortunately education was doing very little to meet the challenge of herd influences, He said lie was not at all sure that teachers had not come under the spell of mass-suggestion, and. forgetting their role as educators, had become passive instruments of a bureaucratic machine. To-day there was an increasing number of boys—and some of them unfortunately very intelligent boys who had no real interests beyond the picture theatre and the radio. All the. organization of games, all the coaching of boys in cricket and football and tennis was simply defeating its own object. Mr. Stevens said he did not believe that every boy should be interested in games—far from it. T^ e terrible idea that because a boy was not engaged in some definite activity during his leisure time he was a slacker was, of course, perfectly absurd. But, on the other hand, every boy should have some interests other than “mob-pleasures” —pictures and radios. Again, there were an increasing number of young people who were satisfied with routine jobs. They lacked that pioneer instinct that sought a career in the spirit and with the daring of the old-time adventurers. They had no desire to go out arid meet the challenge of the world in open combat. “And now the question—what shall we do to be saved?” said Mr. Stevens. “I see our only hope of salvation in a return to the Christian religion. I know that there are many people who consider that religion is bankrupt, and that the churches are empty because the clergy have been slacking on their job. But I don’t think that they are right. The Churches are empty because Christianity makes no appeal to the mob'. It’s challenge is to the individual and that challenge has not been met. But I am convinced that in the near future individual challenges will be met in increasing numbers. In the welter of confused ideas and conflicting emotions and amid the din of propagandists, Nazi and Communist, there is little opportunity for that individual thought, which is the basis of true Christianity. But when “the tumult ami the shouting dies” I feel certain that the Christian philosophy will rule in the world again. I believe there is still hope for our children.”