ADVICE TO STUDENTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22518, 12 March 1935, Page 6

ADVICE TO STUDENTS

LIFE STILL A BATTLE THE CALL TO SERVICE Some advice to students on the subject of preparation for life and the.demands which it makes upon all educated men and women was given by Dr W. Newlands in his address to University students yesterday morning at the opening of the year's work. In the course of his remarks Dr Newlands quoted Admiral Fisher and Lord Birkenhead's address to students of the University of Glasgow, and said that neither believed that a man could lead a slothful existence and survive. _ „ " The social and recreative sideg are now recognised as second in importance oqly to the classroom," said Dr Newlands. "Increasing provision hag been made for these —splendid sports grounds, the mid-weekly half-holiday, and the compulsory contribution by all students, per medium of the tax gatherer, Mr Chapman; and all to the good. Many American universities make physical fitness a 'sine qua non' for enrolment. So far as sport is concerned, I would merely say, ' Be an epicure rather than a gourmand.' The game is greater than the prize, even if it be a ' Blue.' "In social activities there are your students' associations, the debating and kindred societies, the management ; _of your clubs and unions, and the capping carnival. You cannot all be chosen leaders, cannot all monopolise the spotlights, but you can all be good team workers, and the discipline of the team is wonderfully potent in effacing asperities and angularities, and in developing unselfishness, forbearance, self-control, and grit—qualities all needed later, whether you are to remain a free-lance or to enter one of the sheltered vocations, such as the civil service. " In spite of present-day pacifist teaching, life remains a battle, though the weapons and some of the rules may-alter. Even the preacher uses language bristling with the metaphors from war. Admiral 'Jacky' Fisher tells us that a man's finest'possession is not money, not fame, but the ability to look any man in the eye and, if need be, to tell him to go to the devil.—(Laughter.) Fisher was a fighter, and his advice m this, as in many other instances, may sound.. rugged, but Birkenhead went farther in his much-criticised Glasgow rectonal_ address a few years ago when he proclaimed his conviction that life still offers glittering prizes to those with sharp swords. ■ Neither believed that one could lead a lotos-eater's slothful existence and survive. They acted rather on the maxim of Kipling's captain of the Mary Gloster: ' You keep your so shining a little in front o' the next.' "Life's contests, however, constitute one aspect only, inescapable as I believe them to be—at least until we shall have achieved Rousseau's socialism or the millennium—and we cannot afford to enirK the equally insistent and nobler call torservice. Is it not a striking fact that our greatest modern teacher and exponent of this human duty is a great soldier—Baden-Powell? Service does not mean that you must rush to join up witn all or any of the too numerous leagues; opportunities occur daily to the individual who has eyes to see and ears to hear. Not everyone possesses the Hair for service that Jack Butler showed, but his place remains to be filled by one anion,-; you; and none of u e need figure as a unit on the debit side of the balance sheet. If I may allude to one particular sphere of usefulness, I would commend you to join the donors at our Hospital."