POWER OF YOUTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20869, 11 May 1931, Page 10

POWER OF YOUTH.

SERVICE TO THE NATION.

SPIRIT OF UNIVERSITIES.

IDEALS FOR THE WORLD. [BY TELEGRAPH.—OWN CORRESPONDENT.] WELLINGTON, Saturday. A striking address in which emphasis was laid upon the great power in the hands of youth to serve tho nation was delivered by Dr. J. S. Elliott in the Wellington Town Ilall last evening. The occasion was a congratulatory ceremony in honour of graduates of Victoria University College.

In the present day, said Dr. Elliott, New Zealand and the whole world were beset by difficulty and danger, and they who were war-worn, tired and ageing, were looking to tho young university man and woman to make a saner and happier world. "Bring your gifts of pricolcss youth to your countrymen," said Dr. Elliott. "An alleged philosopher has said that when wo aro young we think of all the naughty things there are of which wo desiro personal experience when wo aro older."

"This is an ago of innocence," continued tho speaker. "When we are older wo do things we should not. This is an ago of experience, and when wo are older still wo think with pleasure of all we have done and regret that, owing to our advancing years and other limitations, we are no longer able to err as we had done. This is an age of wisdom, and it entitles those who have reached these halcyon days to givo good advice to their juniors, in accordance with inexorable custom. Question lor Students to Settle. "This is what 1 propose to do, but cautiously—becauso I have had enough good advice given to me to ruin nic—and briefly, apologetically and timidly as becomes my somewhat belated and uncertain respectability. Far bo it from me to point tho finger of scorn or attempt to advise younger peoplo who have had a generation of experience longer than mine.

"I cannot speak about myself, but I may say that tho opinions of my contemporaries are considered to be somewhat mouldy by tho rising generation, for, in tho jargon of the man in tho street in 1931, youth has no inferiority complex and is not to bo condemned for self-expression, whatever that may mean. "But, on the other hand, let me remind you that none of us is Mailable, not even the youngest of us. No matter how gay and carefree graduates may be," the speaker continued, "they must determine whether they are in existence to make a life or make merely a living; whether they are here to make character or only cash. If they settlo this question aright they have tho ideals and tlioy have the spirit of their college, their alma mater, to inspire and sustain them. Spirit of Perpetual Youth.

"This spirit is woven through the whole fabric of its corporate life in succeeding generations, so that the university never is old, for its spirit, which is its fountain of life, rises ever full and fresh within it. We grow grey and old with the strife of a few poor years, but our universities see crowns fall, Governments pass and customs change. "But every vicissitude passes the universities by, for they have the spirit of perpetual youth. What constitutes, therefore, the spirit of perpetual youth ? Ideals, courage, self-reliance, enthusiasm, simplicity and love of work and effort. Qualities decline at times in a nation and in a community, but their vestal fire flames in our academical halls. Otherwise Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and even the comparatively recent University of New Zealand would, ere this, have fallen into senile decay and dissolution.

"You must take these qualities which are, or Should be, the spirit of every university, out into the uninstructed world, and never was it more necessary than at the present time."