NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21457, 3 April 1933, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

TRUTH AND BEAUTY The Archbishop of York, continuing his Gif Ford lectures at Glasgow, with "Truth and Beauty" for his subject, said: "It has been customary to speak of three 'absolute values'—truth, beauty and goodness; these three terms denote threo forms of excellence —intellectual, aesthetic and ethical. It quickly becomes apparent, however, that truth and beauty are not, strictly speaking, absolute values; it is true that they have their value in themselves and are not to be judged by criteria other than their own; but they are not absolute, for there are circumstances in which it is better not to know the truth, and there are instances of beauty which in some circumstances had better not be apprehended. But goodness is truly absolute; it could never bo better that a man should bo a worse man than he is." STAMPING OUT DIALECT " One of the worst influences of modern times can be summed up in the phrase 'Standard English,' " declared Viscount Weymouth, president of the Society of Somerset Folk, in London, at a recent gathering. He deplored the disappearance of country dialects. Many school teachers, ho said, seemed to think that it was in the interests of education that their scholars should be taught the kind of London-Oxford accent instead of the broad smooth accent they liked to hear in Somerset. "The root of good English lies in the country and perhaps more than anywhere else in the West Country," he said. "It is not only the schoolmaster but the British Broadcasting Corporation wlio seem to be doing their best to stamp out the local characteristic of speech and aro bringing us down to one standard pattern. I would rather hear the broad speech of a Somerset farmer than I would the best announcer of the 8.8.C. If the highbrow academic interests of the 8.8.C. have their way I am afraid that our lovely tongue will disappear." EDUCATION AND LIFE In a recent speech Mr. H. Ramsbotham, Parliamentary Secretary to tho Board of Education, said that about 35 per cent of the secondary school population gained the matriculation qualification, but not more than 5 per cent of thoso who left the secondary schools actually entered the universities. " Aro we trying to do too much?" ho asked. " Are wo failing to produce tho shrewd, practical, common-sense man of affairs and substituting exhausted bookworms? Have we jumped in tho last forty years from tho extreme of undcrinstruction to the extreme of overinstruction? Or aro we merely training N.C.O.'s and officers beyond tho needs of tho industrial and professional army and its capacity to absorb them? It may be in tho past we have given too much encouragement to bookishness, that our training has been too academic, that we have set the passing of examinations above the gaining of knowledge. Wo are, however, in the process of modifying and romedying thoso defects. But the apparent reluctance of employers to give that immediate preference in employment to the possessors of a secondary school education over others less well trained and equipped does present a disquieting problem. Many employers fail to appreciate that a good secondary education is more necessary than ever it was to tho successful conduct of modern business, and that in bad times, even more than in good times, it is worth paying for."

SLOWLY PULLING THROUGH "It is tho greatest possible mistako ever to let either an undue optimism or an undue pessimism get a hold of you, because the one has a blinding and the other a strangling effect," said the Prince of Wales at the British industries Fair dinner. " I believe that, because of tho world-wido determination to apply the correctives needed to bring about the long-delayed revival of trade, there is, despite setbacks, a growing feeling of confidence. If the paradox of millions of people haunted by poverty and demoralised by lack of employment, while living in a world rich in actual and potential x-esources, is to be destroyed, this determination must never flag, and it must be world-wide so that confidence may ono day bo world-wido again. Hands have not lost their cunning, nor brains their fruitful capacity for new and profitable ideas. We are pulling through slowly, but in the process there must be no narrow nationalistic exclusiveness. Tho doctrines of economic self-sufficiency and excessive nationalism spell disaster in the changing conditions of modern life. No individual producer, no industry, and no nation can command economic destiny single-handed, nor can it pull through alone. All tho nations are realising more and more that they are economically interdependent, but, in spite of this encouraging fact, we have not as yet found a fully effective form of international co-operation nor a practical way to reconcile limited consumption with unlimited production. We in this country feel that we are now building strongly for the future, for our trade, and for world trade. We must no longer bo influenced by the bitter remembrance of the unfulfilled hopes and disillusionments of recent years. We must trj r to look forward with our heads up and our tails up, not with a slack optimism, but with sane wisdom, confident that our full recovery in world trade must bo slow, yet the more likely it is to bo I certain and lasting."