SUNBEAMS' COLUMN

Maoriland Worker, Volume 13, Issue 31, 1 August 1923, Page 12

SUNBEAMS' COLUMN

Dear Sunbeams, —Some time ago I told you that everyone who has learned to read has the key of knowledge in his.or her own hands. In a recent number of "My Magazine" the editor says much the same thing. He calls the art of reading the "latchkey to Paradise," because a really enjoyable book takes us right away from the earth and all our worries in-: to Paradise. He tells us, too, that years before the schools became genrferal a number of classes were opened fat night for grown-up persons who wanted to learn to read.

You know, Sunbeams, that it is only in the last fifty years or so that the Government has provided sufflj cient schools for all" and compelled ! everyone to send their children to school. Before that there, were thousands and thousands of people in every country who could neither read nor write —in fact nearly everyone who could not pay the fees at expensive schools. I say "nearly" everyone because there have always been some people whom nothing could „eep from learning no matter what their circumstantes were or what difficulties stood in their way. But to the great mass of the people all the glorious books of the ages were a closed door. They could see Shakespeare acted, but they could not read his plays, and so with all the other great writers. Think of that, Sunbeams, and be thankful you came into the world in an age when you are not only taught to read, but have all the best books in the language at your elbow, free, gratis, and for nothing, in the public libraries.

. But many of the people 50 or 60 years ago grieved beer-use tSey could not read, so when night schools were opened, crowds of these grown-ups attended them and started learning •their A.B.C just as you did in the primer classes. In. many parts of England people could be seen making their way' 3 over the hills from the outlying districts in the darkness to the village school. By learning to read they were coming , out of a blacker darkness than that of night. Cor they were banishing the darkness of the mind and coming into the tight of knowledge. The editor of "My Magazine" closes his article with the following question:— WHAT WILL YOU READ WHEK YOU GKOW UP? "Y/hen you were learning to read you were passing into your mind, whether you knew it or not, the latchkey of Paradise. It is ' there now; everyone who. can read possesses it —you possess it. But will you use that key when you grow up? It will open the door of the coal-cellar, the lock on the dustbin, the gate into Vanity Fair, the portal of shame, the, green baize door of make-believe, and many* other doors in the vast house of life. But it WILL, open the door of Paradise if you care to put it into that little gold lock. "Whioh. door will you open with ft? What will you read?" A POLITICAL FABLE. In a troubled State save as much for your own as you can. A dog had been to market to buy a shoulder of mutton; coming home he met two dogs by the way that quarrelled with him; he laid down his shoulder of mutton and fell to fighting with one of them. In the meantime the other dog* fell to eating his mutton. He, seeing that, left the dog he was fighting and fell upon him that was eating. Then the other dog fell to , eating, when he perceived there was no remedy. For no matter which of them he fought, his mutton was in danger. He thought he would have as much of it as he could, and thereupon gave over fighting and fell to eating •himself. ' MUM.