NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23259, 31 January 1939, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

MORE RAPID READING A plea for training in more rapid reading was made by Mr. Rex Knight, head of Aberdeen. University's Psychology Department, in a lecture at the conference of British Educational Associations. He said that a reading speed of 400 words a minute should be regarded as the minimum for ordinary light prose. Most people read unnecessarily slowly. Nobody should be satisfied with a speed of 300 words a minute. Some people could exceed 800 words. Systematic training could treble a person's reading speed. Hero are Mr, Knight's hints on how to achieve this: —Read with the eye alone. Except with a book of literary merit, do not vocalise the words, even mentally. Take in as many words as possible at once. INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY Individuality and freedom grow together, and are indestructible, though they may be suppressed for a while and for limited ends, says the Times. Individuality outlasts every tyranny. It is worth while at this moment to remember that even the great nationalist teacher von Treitschke once wrote that "the doctrine of pure might is a vain doctrine." And he continued:—"ln so far as the State is a physical force it has a natural tendency to seize as many possessions as may seem to it desirable .... but prudent calculation and a mutual recognition of advantages will gradually foster an ever-growing sense of justice. There will arise the consciousness that each State is bound up with the common life of the States around it, and that willingly or unwillingly it must come to terms with them as a body of States." Nations, unless they are to descend to the level of animals in the jungle, must live more and more as a community. MAKING A BEGINNING If the French are sceptical of the value of their new peace pact with Germany, it is because they fear lest too great reliance upon a Germany which is friendly but whose friendship is untried may lead to France's danger through a false sense of safety, says the Aberdeen Press. That is quite a logical attitude, but the French are sometimes too logical. They forget, for example, that only 40 years ago they disliked the British as much as they disliked the Germans, and that to them for 800 years Albion had been the perfidious. Vet within a decade of Fashoda and the Boer War the British and French Governments were building up the Entente Cordiale. Such revolutionary changes have got to be begun, and they can be carried through only if, once begun, both sides find themselves animated by a common purpose sufficiently strong to overcome ordinary misunderstandings. It is difficult to see yet where France and Germany cau, as things are, find this common purpose, but no one can foretell what unexpected realignments may come about in European relationships. DIVINE DISCONTENT The two things in this world that, above all others, elude all human attempts to organise them are men's aspirations after freedom in personal expression and their spirit of adventure; and these are the essential qualities of the religious life, writes Mr. Peter Fletcher in his book, "In Search of Personality." You can crystallise into a form the truths discerned yesterday, but that form will not embrace the inspirations of to-morrow. You can define in a creed or formula the faith men have expressed, but you cannot impart by teaching the divine discontent that led them to seek it. Consequently no matter how sincerely a religious institution endeavours to preserve unsullied the teachings it designs to impart, it cannot prevent them from undergoing critical scrutiny at the hands of men of vision, except by claiming that virtue is in the letter of the teaching, rather than in its spirit. Thus, organised religion is continually being confronted with this dilemma; it can encourage the people to dream dreams and see visions only at the risk that the revelations vouchsafed to them will shake the foundations of the old authority, and thus of tho organisation . it sustains; while, if it remains loyal to the letter of its own tradition by denying men the right to spiritual freedom, the organisation quenches the flame of its own vitality. IRON RING OF SELF Though it is true that the developed man is a political animal, his natural predisposition to turn his eyes inward upon himself is very. powerful, the Times reflects. Each one of us, when he comes to full self-consciousness, finds himself the centre of his universe. All sensation, all perception, all experience is mediated to him by the equipment of body and brain which is the vehicle and organ of his spirit. He cannot escape from that iron ring. If he could, it would be at tho cost of his identity. He would oease to be himself. He is so completely self-encased that philosophers find it necessary to write long and learned dissertations-on the grounds for believing that we are surrounded by personalities similar to our own. The existence of such personalities is, in strict logic, only an inference from the evidence of our senses and from the thoughts and feelings which that evidence inspires in us. The only fact for which no such evidence can ; logically be .asked or given is the ultimate bedrock: "This is myself." It is a formidable thought that each of us is thus fast bound in the narrow circle of his own individuality. The moral life is a continuous effort to transcend those limits. From that effort flow the sympathy, tho unselfishness, the pity, and • the love which redeem the world from being an intolerable abiding place. It docs seem to us possible to sally forth a little way from our central fastness, and to spend some part of ourselves on those around us. It does seem possible to open the gate of our fortress to those we love, and to admit them deep into the secret city. Hut always ultimately there stands the central keep,, "watchtower and treasure-fortress of the soul," Which no intensity of longing can open or enter. Man must pay by that ultimate loneliness the . price, of tho great possession of personality. But the very moments of that human isolation are the supreme opportunity of the more than human companionship and comfort which man's religious inBtinct prompts him to pursue.