ST. ANDREW’S LITERARY CLUB

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21671, 15 June 1932, Page 9

ST. ANDREW’S LITERARY CLUB

PREPARED SPEECHES. The St. Andrew’s Literary and Debat- ( ing Club held its fortnightly meeting in' the Bible School, Carroll street, on Friday last. Mr J. W. Hayward was in the chair, and there was an attendance of 24 members. The chairman spoke of the play-reading of “Mr Pirn Passes By,” which the club will present shortly. The meeting took the form of prepared speeches, 15 members speaking. The subjects chosen were very diverse in aim and treatment. _ “ Belts v. Braces,” “ Toe H.,” “ Native Birds,” “ Quaint Customs of the England of To-day,” “Apples in History,” “ The Victorians,” “ One Aspect of the Maori to the World About Him,” and “Ghost versus Detective Stories” were a few of the subjects spoken on. One of the outstanding speeches was on “ Optimism in History,” given by Mr N. Woods, He traced the rise and fall of civilisation from the Greek through the Roman Empire, Middle Ages, Reformation, French Revolution, and Great War to the League of Nations. He said that there should be no room for pessimism to-day. In the present period, as in those he had sketched, there had been something insidious at the root of the failure of civilisations. Yet there never had been a destruction of civilisation that had not caused a new to rise phocnix-liko in triumph and progress. Another speech that aroused great interest was that of Miss J. Lennox. Her allegory spoke of the difference in outward seeming between a tree growing on a bleak, wind-swept hill, and that of poplars growing in a warm-sheltered valley. Though the gnarled and twisted tree seemed such an outcast, yet it had gained in character through its victory over environment. So also did the cripple—the halt, the mute, the mental weakling—in his reaction to his environment, gain in character over those who have lived in the valley of fair circumstance, for beauty was but skin-deep, and character was golden, ’