CANTERBURY TALES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXI, Issue 15257, 18 March 1910, Page 6

CANTERBURY TALES.

Josh Bigelow, in one of his happiest veins, has told us that in reading history everything runs smoothly because men are only ideas, but that in making it “tli’ idees ke.v arms an’ legs, an stop th’ way.” The Committee of Early Colonists of Canterbury is anxious to preserve those “ arms and legs,” and is making an appeal to the public foi funds to supplement the sum voted bj tho Board of Governors of Canterbury College for the collection and preservation of early records of the province. The appeal is one which should meet with a generous ar.d ready response. Canterbury owes a deep debt of gratitude to the sturdy pioneers of settlement whose courage and enterprise have made the way easy for the thousands who have followed thorn, and it should pride itself in keeping their memory green. “ Love thou the land,’ tho poet writes, “ with love farbought from out the storied Past,” and it must be counted foT grace to the now generation that while its “storied Past” contains but few chapters and few stories it regards the provincial history with something of respect and something of patriotic enthusiasm. But this admirable senescent requires practical expression, l-h is all very well to complacently rog.'.'-J ourselves as the successors to a splsadid band of colonists, but children’s children are apt t-o lose in tho perspective of the years tho proper sense of proportion. It is here that “sounding brass” and “dull, cold marble ” have their uses, but statues and memorial tablets are not the only methods of embalming the Past. The province has not yet celebrated its diamond wedding with civilisation, and there are still sturdy settlers in our midst who remember its primitive beginnings. History is far too often made from embellishments of liplore, and a young country like this, profiting from the experience of plder lands, should take care, for the sake of posterity, that its progress is written year by year in tangible records. Books, documents, letters and pictures all play their part in the compilation of such a history, and already the committee has received valuable assistance in the collection of data of this description. But tlie housing of tho records is an undertaking that calls for funds, and it is in this direction that those who cannot help with contributions in kind should help with subscriptions. We hope they will make it their special duty to relieve the committeo of all anxiety concerning tho preservation of the treasures it is collecting.