TRUTH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 7 January 1926, Page 8

TRUTH

AND KNOWLEDGE AN ENGLISHMAN’S EDUCATION ... Dean. Inge, who presented the prizes at. the Perse. School, Cambridge, declared that lie agreed with what Mr Baldwin told the students at Edinburgh University—that British education was based on two things, the acquisition! of knowledge and the habit of truthfulness, writes the London correspondent of the Christchurch Press. The Dean laid stress on the importance of learning to express oneself in plain accurate English, and to recognise tliaL’sincerity, of purpose was not quite chough. “No- one who possesses a thorough knowledge of Greek and Latin prose can deceive his neighbour except wilfully,” he added amid laughter, “and the emphasis laid upon truth is very valuable. Truth is part of tin* ideal of an English gentleman, and it is the workaday religion of all English people.” .He. quoted the Rhodes Scholar at Oxford who, when asked what was bis chief -impression of the University, replied: “The- extraordinary spirit' that, animates the 3000 young men who would lose the game rather than piav unfairly.”. Without wishing to over-praise his fellow-countrymen, the Dean of St. Paul’s thought that compared with other nations the British showed up fairly well in loving justice, truthfulness, and fair play. This in a large degree was due to the Public Schools and Universities. In order that they might .not he unduly lifted up, he pointed out that verbal truthfulness and straightness of action were not the whole thing. .“It has been a defect in our English charnc ter/’ he remarked, “that we are inclined, when, we take up a difficult subto sheer off when we seem to lie led into an awkward situation, arid if it be true it is a defect; for honest thinking, no less than honest speaking, j is part of the virtue of truthfulness.” 1