NEWS AND OPINIONS

Evening Star, Issue 22228, 4 January 1936, Page 2

NEWS AND OPINIONS

THE FAMILY THE SOURCE “ The chief educational instrumentality should always be the family. If parents do not themselves instruct*, guide, shape, and discipline their children, education in any true sense becomes almost impossible. The school itself, however important, is and always should be a subordinate and cooperating educational agency. If if> supports and strengthens the influence of the family, well and good. ■. If it combats that influence, disaster waits just around the corner. If there beno family education, the school, do what it will, can never take the family’s place. The school, without the,family* may easily become almost an obstacle to education, particularly when accompanied by the silent influence upon the youthful mind and feeling of the sensational happenings of the moment as recorded in the Press from day to day. The school becomes an obstacle to education when it subordinates or neglects discipline, when it endeavours to substitute elaborate paraphernalia for the very simple instrumentalities of true education.”—Dr Nicholas Murray Butler, in an address delivered at the opening of the 182nd year of Columbia University (U.S.A.). FUTURE OF THE CROWN COLONIES “ To talk of the Crown Colonies being handed over wholesale as mandates to the League,” the Colonial Secretary said, “ is to presume that the peoples can be treated as mere chattels. But we are bound to consult their wishes, and I have no doubt that, if we were to do so we should find the vast majority of them content and anxious to stay in their present situation.' To say that implies no criticism of, the mandate system. In fact, the sentiment of the people in the colonies is due to our having for a long time past in our Colonial Government practised; the very principles laid down by the League of Nations for the government of mandated territories. We have acted primarily as trustees for the welfare and happiness of tho peoples in the colonies, and they have a lively appreciation of the many benefits which, they have received under the British Crown.” —Mr Malcolm Macdonald. GOOD FOR ELECTIONS Some capital against the Press was made at the recent elections by references to one John Swinton, described as “ late editor of the New York ‘ Times.’ ”, At a banquet given to him on his retirement from office Mr Swinton was alleged to have said: “There is no such thing in America as an independent Press. You know it as I know, it. There is not one of you who would dare write his honest opinions. I am paid 2Sodol (£SO) a week to keep my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping-jacks—they pull the strings and we dance.” A correspondent of the, ‘ Star ’ quoted the story as if there was no doubt of its authenticity. The story has since been reprinted m the ‘ New Zealand Journalist,’ the official 'organ' of the New. Zealand Journalists’ Association, causing a correspondent of that paper to write as follows to its December issue:—“ There is a curious persistence , about the ‘ John Swinton ’ paragraph. . . . It has been hurled across the floor of the House by fervid Labour members, and about a couple of years ago I had 1 the task of trying to trace its origin. 1 found that the quotation used in tho House was from a cutting 10 or 12 years old in which an obscure weekly, now I think defunct, quoted from some unacknowledged source. The most curious discovery made in my investigation, however, was that the New York 1 Times ’ itself knows nothing of its alleged ‘late editor,’ the abusive Air John Swinton.” TURKEY'S HEW CENSUS The recent census shows that th# Turkish population has increased from 13,660.275 in 1927 to 16,188,767. The population of Istanbul, which steadily dropped after the armistice, has recovered, and now amounts to 740,751, as against 690,857 in 1927. Turkey is aiming at a thirty million population. Everything is therefore being, done to improve economic conditions and to reduce the death rate by improving sanitary conditions. In order to take the census sixteen: million people were kept at home from 7 o’clock in the morning to 5 o’clock at night, while they were being counted by about 200,000 of their fellow-citizens. Many births were, of course, registered that day, and,some of the children have been called “ Sayin ” or “ Census ” in commemoration of the day. . OPERA TOKEN CARDS Opera token cards are a new idea for Christmas presents. They are being sold for ,the third Mozart Festival atGlyndebourne, which is to be held from May 29 to July 5,.1936 (says the ‘Observer ’). The recipients of these cards will receive in exchange a. subscription or a seat. Various subscription rates will be available during the festival for the performances on Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays,: and singe tickets will be obtainable every day. Five operas will be presented during the season, ‘ Don Giovanni ’ being added to a repertoire, which already consists of ‘ Figaro,’ * Costi fan Tutte,’- ‘ Die Zauberflote,’ and ‘ Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail.’ The productions will again be in the hands of Carl Ebert. The conductors for the season will be Fritz Busch, Hans Oppenheim, and Aberto Erede. It is the intention after next season to give operas other than Mozart, and to enlarge the stage and reconstruct the opera house to seat an audience of 600, twice as many as at present. The popularity of the festival has brought offers from Paris and Copenhagen for broadcasting some of the performances.