YOUR OWN HOME TOWN

Grey River Argus, 18 April 1940, Page 10

YOUR OWN HOME TOWN

In his travels Dr. Sutch has visited places as wide apart as Lapland and Turkestan, the Transvaal and Afghanistan Even so, he says that travel doesn’t broaden the mind. More important is what you get in your own home town. - —“The Standard,” 11/4/40. The above report of the interview with Dr. Sutch reminds us that although we have said it before in The Magazine Page, it is worth saying again. Stay at home all you glory seekers ! Discover your own home town I Here, in the life of our own home town is the foundation upon which democracy rests. Here, upon each individual citizen enjoying comparatively high standards of political and civic freedom and security from want, rests a responsibility for taking the initiative, as far as it lies in his or her-, power and ability, in promoting good government, in spreading progressive ideas and in encouraging taste and judgment in the community. Here is a task to try your mettle and to interest you all the days of your life I . In our own home town people are living their lives and the ordinary everyday things are happening: humdrum, perhaps, on the surface, ’but underneath are the simple, substantial things that make life worth living. With a little imagination and a little organisation people with like interests could be brought together in groups interests and enthusiasms could be discovered and encouraged for those without them and life in our home town could be made better and richer and more satisfying for all. The secret of internationalism lies in the interests we share with others. Here is a group interested in co-operation, or in drama, or in safety in mines, or in sewing. Whatever the religious and political languages the individuals speak, they speak the common language of co-operation, drama, safety in mines or sewing. If people with similar interests can be brought together in groups in their own home town groups with like interests can be brought together nationally and internationally, with definite advantage to humanity in its search for the good life. If each community with the help of the Education Department, seriously tackled the problem of its cultural life, of the development of the minds of its members morally, artistically and intellectually, the radio suddenly! started to give us both sides of the question, say, when some part of the industrial life of the country got.out of gear—not an impartial talk by a professor but really exciting discussions or statements of the position as seen by the coal owners and the miners, or by the ship owners and the waterside workers as the case might be—what a difference it would make to our everyday lives ! What an interest everyone would take in Industrial disputes 1 The problem is how to get tihe most out of our own home town ; how tq get the education, the stimulation, the enthusiasm that will broaden our minds, and make us into the' intelligent cit.zens that democracy demands. A possible answer is a Community Centre in each of our own home towns. Feilding and Rangiora have already made * start in this direction and we hope later to be able to report on their methods and progress.