SOIL AND CHARACTER

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24102, 22 October 1941, Page 6

SOIL AND CHARACTER

BREEDING GOOD CITIZENS NEW ZEALAND'S ENDOWMENTS (0.C.) PALMERSTON NORTH, Tuesday The opinion that there was no better training ground for character than the soil was expressed by the GovernorGeneral, Sir Cyril Newall, when speaking at Massey College to-day. The soil, he said, bred good citizens, brave soldiers and good families, and those young men who were going 011 to farms in New Zealand had a responsibility to keep up traditions. The people of New Zealand were very fortunate in that Providence had endowed the land with a climate very beneficial to health and growth, but sometimes such gifts led to waste and forgetfulness in taking advantage of them. He was glad to know that there was not a tendency to take more out of the land than was right, thereby providing for the future. Some might try for quick returns, but he had yet to discover any method that could be likened to perpetual motion.

YOUNG DELINQUENTS

COUNTER-EFFORTS NEEDED

(0.C.) PALMERSTON NORTH, Tuesday

Concern at the amount of juvenile delinquency in New Zealand was expressed by the Wanganui Education Board to-day when the need for supplementary efforts at character building was emphasised in a resolution to be sent to the Minister of Education.

The chairman of the board, Mr. E. F. Hemingway, said that while one viewed with alarm the number of children who were appearing before the Courts, he did not suggest that teachers had been failing in their duty. Nevertheless figures appearing in the annual report of the Child Welfare Department were disquieting. In this country of 1,500,000 people, 2953 children appeared before the Courts in 1939-40 and 2931 in 1940-41. The Rev. P. Wiltshire said he had read that in Canada parents could be brought before the Court for the delinquencies of their children. It was a pity that this was not also the position in New Zealand.