THE DOLE GERM

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6902, 7 May 1929, Page 3

THE DOLE GERM

KILLING AMBITION.

Dances and the dole arc the despair of East End employers, writes R. E. Corder in tho Daily Mail. They say that the dole germ has so impregnated the fruits of education that young men who have passed through the council schools havo forgotten all they learned. “What shall wc make of our boys?” has always been a parental problem; but the real difficulty to-day is: "Will the boy try tc make something of himself?” I have seen letters from men aged not more than 25 applying for situations in Poplar, and I have been astounded by the illiterate efforts. Bad handwritiug, worse spelling, and no idea of composition were shown in these letters written by men who arc supposed to havo the benefit, of an expensive popular education. The majority would disgrace a boy in the first standard. "How do you -account for it? 1 asked a builder and contractor. "They have forgotten all they learned because the dole has killed ambition and destroyed energy in this district, whore the. chief demand is something for nothing,” he replied. "Physically and mentally they have degenerated solely through idleness. They havo become worksby, stupid, and insolent, but they retain sufficient animal cunning to know how to live sortly. 7 * These boys and girls catch the dole germ as easily as they catch measles, and from the same cause. They get it from infection. They sec their fathers living without working, as thousands live in the East End, where I challenge anybody to discover any open signs of starvation. The pride of poverty keeps the real poor —and there aie cases of acute poverty —in the background. They suffer in silence because they would sooner suffer than be shamed.