HOW THE WORLD IS POOR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19730, 1 September 1927, Page 10

HOW THE WORLD IS POOR.

"NO REALLY GREAT MAN." AMERICAN EDUCATIONIST'S VIEW. [from our own correspondent.] SAX FRANCISCO, July 27. For the first time in 20G0 years, the world is without a really great man, in the opinion of Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, president Columbia University. "For two thousand years," he said, on his return from a European tour, "there never was a period when, somewhere in the world, there was not a really great poet., philosopher or genius of some sort, who dwarfed his fellow-men. Yet to-dav there is not one such great man in any of the countries of the world. "Never has the world been convulsed by a great war without some great man emerging from the struggle. The last war produced a number of distinctly able men. military and civil. P>ut. they are in groups. None dwarfs the other. I do not pretend to know the explanation. Perhaps the intelligence and the standard of knowledge of the people lias attained so high a level that the great no longer look great—as, when the plains rise, the mountains look small. "The rapidity oi' the advance of science and- invention is astounding. It is impossible to visualise conditions of life as tliev "will be ten years hence. Indeed, if we of the older generation could tell our grandfathers of some things we now treat as commonplace, they would laugh at us in scorn.