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Hokitika Guardian, 25 May 1933, Page 4

“TnE public good, just because it is public, cannot be effectively served by the independent, unco-ordinated action of isolated individuals, no matter how well disposed to it they may be. It can be effectively served only by the concerted action of the public,” writes Dr. L. P. Jacks, editor of the Hibbert Journal. ‘‘Wo misconceive the naturo of tho public good,” ho continues, “when we. think of it as resulting from the accumulated actions of benevolently-minded or public-spirited individuals, each working for it op his own lines. The public good is symphonic in its structure, and for. that reason can never he brought into beifig merely by multipliying the numbers of the public-spirited and accumulating their good deeds. . . Among thoughtful people of to-day,” saiys Dt. Jacks in a subsequent passage, “there is no lack of willingness to accept the necessity of social planning, but there is an appalling lack of 'tire social skill without which no plan that we can think of would have the remotest chance of working successfully, and a deep hatred of the discipline which alone can -produce the skill that is needed. Ou r ‘systems of education’ have been directed to another end ... If a social system of any kind is to be established—a thing entirely novel in Western civilisation—education must lose no time in furnishing it[ with the social discipline appropriate to its working; on no other terms can it he worked. If, on the other hand, we are resentful of diafip’lind, determined to pursue our way as ‘walking Declarations of Independence.’ and too highly developed to walk otherwise, then we must abandon all hope of a social system and he content to live, as heretofore, in society.”