NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23165, 11 October 1938, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES

"Glad This is the designation given to her occupancy of the Dutch throne by good Queen Wilhelmina on the fortieth anniversary of the beginning of her reign, writes Clearway in the Christian Science Monitor. Glad years! The phrase rings. It speaks of industry; of self-respect; of national integrity, frugality, wisdom, independence. It speaks of neat gardens and neat minds, tulips and tranquility. And, withal, it speaks of peace—peace within, reflected in peace without. Netherlands' queen reports 40 glad years, one may believe, because her subjects have been more concerned with acquiring the "have" of character than the "have nots" of vast possessions. In integrity, as opposed to aggressiveness; in friendliness, as opposed to physical force; in honesty, as oppdsed to diplomatic "adroitness." POWER WITHOUT MORALITY

"Man, as he is at present, is as incapable of using wisely some of the best gifts of science as a child is of using safely a sharp knife," said Dr. Garbett, Bishop of Winchester, in his official sermon to members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. "The events of the last few years and the spectacle of Europe today has made it plain to all that knowledge by itself does not necessarily mean progress. If our civilisation shares the fate of its predecessors, it will be because, while it had greater knowledge than any of them, it did not know how to use it rightly. If the present process is to be reversed we must learn to love God as well as to love man. In onler that we may learn to love God and man, we ask that in schools, colleges and universities as much care should be taken over the teaching and practice of religion as over the teaching of science." CLASSICAL EDUCATION

"When St. Augustine reached Britain about A.D. 600 with a mission to educate the barbarians, he first found it necessary to establish grammar schools to teach the classical grammar. Not until ! students knew Latin could they begin to study the mathematics, logic, music, theology and rudimentary science of that day," said Professor Griffith Taylor at the British Association meeting. "We are a conservative people, and many folk seem to think that what was good enough for St. Augustine ought to be good enough for us. This is, perhaps, the main reason why so mhny of our schools still give the lion's share of their time to the acquisition of an inadequate knowledge of the Latin language. Plato and Aristotle did not occupy the invaluable time of their students by wearisome repetition of the vocabularies of the Egyptians, from whom the Greeks derived much of their culture, or of folk-tales written in some foreign language two thousand years before their date. They trained youth to deal intelligently with existing conditions. We should do the same." QUEST AND CREATION

e To the curiosity and enterprise of , science we owe everything that disy tinguishes our existence from the lot Q of former generations—its longer span Q of life, its relative security, abundance, and variety, its movement of body and mind. That these conditions should bring their own perils, says the ■? London Observer, is as natural as that the bird should have moro contingenn cies to face than the limpet. To cope 0 with them requires the same adjuste ment of powers and faculties that ha* '» been demanded at everj stage of ® animal or human evolution. Every ens' richment of life means increased opportunity of error. Our situation of the moment is that mechanism and the passions it incites threaten the balance of moral equilibrium. There is undoubtedly a deflection from the standards of purpose and responsibil- ' ity. Lightmindedness is widespread. In r a life so greatly subject to wholesale ■ regulation and machinery there is 1 much to beget the mood of the m«re spectator. The appreciation of duty ' needs reinforcement—which h to say r that there are defects in our educational method, The problem of tho age , is to fit man for exercise of the powers f that are within his grasp It is formidj able, and not to be achieved without > both thought and sacrifice. B\it there ) is no hope in the view that would ciri cumscribe human destiny and put con- . fines to knowledge. It is by virtue of . quest and creation that man stands 1 where he in the universe. ' BOTANY'S PART IN ECONOMICS [ .Referring to the economic import- : ance of cell physiology and its importance in applied botany, Professor W. Stiles, president of the botany section of the British Association, said: —"We all know, but it cannot bo too strongly emphasised, that botany is the pure science of a great part of the most important industry of the world, agriculture, and that, like every other industry, it can only be carried on wisely if its practice is based on scientific principles. Almost all branches of botany are important for agriculture, but mycplogy.: genetics and physiology are particularly so, and certainly physiology is not the least of th&se. Absorption of water and nutrients from the soil, assimilation of carbon, water relations of the plant, vegetative development, flowering and fruiting are all problems of agriculture which are essentially physiological and in many of which the of general cell physiology are of importance. Similarly in forestry physiology must play as equally important a part. But besides these more obvious economic applications there are numerous industries in which the principles of general cell physiology are no less fundamental. There are all thoso industries, ever increasing in numbei and importance, which are based on some particular plant product, such as cotton, linen, jute, rubber, tea. sugar and tobacco, to mention - only a few of the more important. Apart from the growing of the plants lOtem* selves, which like any other forip of agricultural practice should be basod on sound/ physiological principles, q knowledge of these principles may bo < equally important in the subsequent treatment of the plant material, in ( particular, a knowledge of cell organisation, the action of enzymes contained 1 in the cell, its behaviour toward various reagents, all aspects of ceneral t physiology, are essential. Finally tho ( great food storage industry depends , greatly on the application of knowledge of cell physiology." 1