SIMPLE LIVING

Evening Post, Issue 12, 14 July 1936, Page 5

SIMPLE LIVING

THE PARAMOUNT NEED

CARE OF HUMAN.'-MACHINE

(Special to the "Evening Post") VPALMERSTON N., This- Day The declaration that the. paramount need of this age was not genius but sanity was made during the course oi an address in Palmerston North yesterday by Dr. T. Gray, Director of Mental Hospitals. And that sanity, he added, was to be obtained by a return to simple living—r^sh air, sunshine, bathing, diet simplicity, full .living by day, and sound sleeping by night, fr. Gray offered a number of his opinions gathered during thirty years of work in connection with mental hospitals. . ' '

In our mental hospitals- at present were 7290 inmates. Of these 1927 suffered from congenital defects, but 5363 were born normal and had since broken down in health. Of those admitted to mental institutions last year, 57 per cent, would reside there for life Why was this? It was absurd to say these people were born with a destiny for the mental home. They had been able-bodied and able-minded. It seemed futile to attribute disease to childbirth or others of the causes usually cited. It seemed rather to be due to some fault in our system of caring for the human machine. In child welfare and in kindergarten work our engineering care.of the human machine was excellent, but. it was in the school system that we were culpable, failing to recognise individuality and hopelessly over-emphasising the significance of examinations. Many children suffered no harm, and in their way and place examinations were essential but it was a false idea to try to push intelligence into a child. It was sabotage of our greatest gifts to drive all children towards the same narrow objective. "I know it will sound a rank heresy, but I am not without hope that the day will come when employers, in advertising positions for young people, will announce: None with matriculation need apply," concluded Dr. Gray.