NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21233, 13 July 1932, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE HABIT OF READING

Is there a decline of reading ? Sir John Simon, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, asked the question when he presided over the anniversary dinner of the Royal Literary Fund. " I look back to my beginnings," he said, "and I think with deep gratitude and affection of the home from which I came, where the reading of a book and the making of it a part of the life of the home was a most important and interesting event. But family reading, like family prayers, has certainly gone out of vogue, and tho hustle of these days, with the easy processes of the cinema screen and the broadcast talk, offer to idle minds a dangerous diversion. I£ it were true that reading and that delightful process of subsequent reflection which is of the essence of the pleasure which literature gives to the reader, is on the decline, we might think unhappily on the future of our State."

INBRED PUBLIC SPIRIT. Sir Thomas Inskip, the AttorneyGeneral, speaking at Northwich, referred to the Ottawa Conference and said that there was a bright prospect before them. They had passed through dark days, but they had already cleared a path through the worst part of the jungle, and only a traitor to his past could doubt the future. They could now afford to breathe quietly, because they'faced facts last autumn; when the easy-going spend-ing-other people's-money type of politician was pulled up with a short turn. Some thought the nation too much debauched by extravagance to stand up to severe economies, but it was a triumph for the inbred public spirit of the average citizen. The nation had been able to make a great change in its fiscal system, which had led to new factories and corrected in part the adverse balance of trade. They were learning, as a nation, the importance of financial stability. It was a victory onco more for the British capacity for self-government. They were suffering a chastening experience, but it would yield a rich harvest if they did not wilt under it.

THE REAL AMERICA. " I occasionally sense a lack of under standing of our foreign-born population, which seems to me based on a misapprehension of the facts. One Capone does not counterbalance millions of loyal and industrious citizens of whom one never hears; nor • are lawlessness and greed peculiar to any race or any nation," said Mr. Mellon, the American Ambassador, in a recent speech on the subject of his countrymen. " One must remember that America is a young country in outlook as well as in years. Many of our faults are faults of youth, but we have also the energy and, in ordinary circumstances, the boundless optimism that goes with youth and a belief in our capacity to achieve what we set out to do. To-day, like other nations, America is bewildei'ed in the face of forces which have overwhelmed the world. We have found that the machine civilisation which has been evolved in recent years cannot be made to function with ever-increasing speed, and that new inventions and over-pro-duction have necessitated a period of slowing down until the world adjusts itself to the conditions that have arisen since the war. At such a time it is well to remind ourselves that, the principles on which our English-speaking civilisation was founded have not changed, -and that, being true to those principles, we shall weather the storm as we have weathered other storms before."

CRAFT OF SURGERY. " It may safely be claimefi," said Lord Moynihan, president of the RoyjJ), College of Surgeons, in his Romanes ftcture at Oxford, "that the craft of surgery has in these days almost reached the end of its progress along the lines which so far it has followed. The full fruits of Lister's work have now been garnered. Operations are performed by the great masters with a success that leaves little hope of bettorment. Surgery is more than science, more than ar,t; it is a sacrament. For the surgeon au operation is an incident in tho day's work; for our patient it may be tho sternest, most dreaded, of all trials. The normal man who offers the most promising field for inquiry has boen too much neglected. Patients seek our aid only, as a rule, when something has gone seriously wrong or is. threatening to do so. Our opportunities are too often confined to rescues in tho last ditch. What -would surely advance our knowledge and perhaps lead on a largo scale to the prevention of disease is hospital research on those suffering from slighter ailments. Much of the experimental investigation carried out in laboratories throughout tho world would have a far higher value in l-espeot of immediate application to human need if closer brotherhood were created botween physiologist and physician. Many of us hoped that a strong bond of union might be forged by the Medical Research Council, but our hopes have not yet boen fulfilled. The early training of medical students, and the methods of observation, correlation, and decision oil the one nand and of experiment on tho other are, I think, seriously defective. Many of tho earlier months of the student's. career are engaged in acquiring knowledge by jieither of these methods, but by tho simple business of memorising a number of facts apparently unrelated which he makes haste to forget as soon ,as the necessary examinations are passed.*' ,