PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3828, 26 July 1927, Page 10

PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

THE CAUSES OF SUCCESS. Lord Cowdray, one of Britain’s great and successful business men, in giving to the world one of the causes of his success, mentions that it was his choice of a partner for life—his wife—and the. choice of young men whom he made partners in his business that helped to make him one of the wealthiest business men in England. He took great care in selecting the young men, whom he advanced to high positions, and studied their characters well before lie gave them work of responsibility and worth. He says: “In ail my partners I have been singularly blessed. They joined me as young men, and, if in my growing old the growing has been a pleasure, the fact and cause have been that we grew old together,” and then he goes on to give some valuable advic-c —the best of the kind which makes for success in life. Something of the kind has been mentioned before in this column in the advice "iven on character building, which must be begun early in one’s young life. Pater in the course of his life has had a great deal to do with boys, and he has seen some make a success of their lives and others make failures, and also not a few end in the tragedy of an early death. In the same family he has seen one attain to a high position in the business world and the other make a sad mess of things. In the case of the former success was due to the boy’s having a well-balanced mind and being very serious, careful, and steady in his school work, both in his primary school and secondary school life: while in the case of the other it was carelessness in all that he did, his dislike of any restraint, and his refusal to listen to sound advice which led to his failure to succeed in anything that in his manhood he undertook to do. He did not like school and schoolmasters, and would not go to a secondary school. All he wanted to do as soon as his primary school days were concluded was to go to work and have money to spend. At an early age he took to bad companions, became a cigarette fiend, and soon learnt other vices. He became what boys and young men called “ dopey.” that is. careless, slow, and apparently stupid, and got the sack from any job he entered. His characteristics were bad, and his work poor. In general his character was no good, and that is what leads to failure and unemployment. To-day he cadges occasionally a shilling from old friends he meets in the streets.

His unreliability or general unworthiness was due to bad early training and lack of foresight and self-restraint. He was hard to advise, and when he got good advice paid little attention to it. As a boy he did not even take part in the good, healthy, and manly games of his fellow-schoolboys, and, as a result, he „rcw up weedy and lacking in energy. He would not even dig the garden or chop wood properly for his mother, and. of course, be landed in the voyage of his life just where his kind of character would be likely to land such a fellow. It is character that has often been stressed in this column, for without good, sound, solid characteristics a bov or young man need not expect to get anywhere far along the road to the goal of success and fortune. Even a boy who has belonged to too poor a family to acquire much education in his early days, if he lias character, or, in other words, a well-balanced mind, can make a great success of his life. Our own great Mr Richard Seddon was a man of very little education, but a man of great character and determination. Abraham Lincoln was another, and so was Captain Cook. Each of those men acquired, by his own efforts in his own way and for the views he had in his mind, the education he required for his life work. The}’ were all men of character, and their great successes were due to their admirable characteristics.

AA hat I have said here in so many words is much better said by Lord Cowdray, and I cannot do better than reproduce the words of wisdom which his experience in his busy and successful life has brought home to his mind and deeply impressed therein. Here the.y are: — “ I would like to sav one thing to all young folk, and to young men and women in particular. who must carry on the work of the world. In no part of it, and I have worked in many, is there any short cut or royal road to success, and success includes much more than mere money getting. “ I say this because I am s often asked by anxious parents how th ?y can ensure the success of their children, as if there were a secret to divuige “ Nobody can ensure the success of another. A man must stand on his own feet. The inexorable law is character, and let every young man ambitious to succeed feel that he has lost his way until he finds a job which absorbs all the best of himself. “ Success is sweet. To-day . realise how profoundly sweet it is, but the joy is in the doing. Not the end of the journey, but the travelling, is what makes life worth while.”

All young and serious New Zealanders should learn this advice off by heart, and let the deep wisdom that is in it'sink into their hearts and become part of their being. If it is learnt and followed carefully, it will lead to fortune or fame. If such ideas of how one should act were, to become general throughout the Dominion, thev would put this coun try, so greatly blessed by the gifts of Nature, in the forefront of the nations of men. Some day, in the near future, we will see the governments of the great countries of the world employing speciallytrained men to go round all their schools enquiring into character development, giving lectures on it, and laying down rules of guidance both for teachers and pupils. In some countries a beginning bas already been made in this work.

SHOULD THERE BE HOME AVORK? In our papers recently we have seen many letters about home lessons for school children, and in a large community the opinions held by parents vary very greatly. Some believe in them and some do not, and generally those who do not are those who take no great interest m the development of the minds of their offspring. There are very few cases where home lessons to-day are excessive and oppressive, especially in primary schools. Generally, with the exception of a few special cases, when tile objections are made, they come from a household where there is no system and control, or the children are mentally or bodily weak. In the case of the last, the parents should inform the teacher, because it is often the case that such children are excitable or over-anxious, and become nervous. If children are overworked it will be found, as a rule, that the fault is at home and not in the school. Standard work in these days is easy enough, much easier than it used to be, and except a home exercise all children have to learn can be learned, if they are normal, in 20 minutes, that is, if they are attentive in school. On the other hand, there are many people who complain if they find their children have no home work to do. In towns home lessons are useful, inasmuch as they keep children at home at nights and out of mischief, both inside and outside the house. They keep them from too frequently spending their pocket money in picture shows and from being on the streets with bad companions. There should be some lessons, but they should never be difficult and excessive; they should be just enough to keep the child in touch with his work and just enough to let parents interested in the progress of their children know what their children are doing, and how they are progressing. Home lessons should never be of such a kind and amount that they deprive the children of time for healthy play or the indulgence in some home hobby. Here is th e opinion of a Scotsman who is an authority on the education of children. It is taken from the well-known paper Public Opinion:— Mr Stewart A. Robertson, organiser of education, in a report to the Dundee authority on home lessons, deals with a subject often discussed by parents as to whether their children have too many lessons after school hours. “ Home lessons should in general be confirmatory. supplemental, illustrative, expansive, action under an impulse which has been stirred in school. [Those big words simply mean that home lessons should be a revision of what has been taught during the day in school, and that the pupil may, if he is interested in any part of the work done, add to it by study of other books if they are to be found in his home; but there is no compulsion.] All work of such a character may fitly, if in due measure, be assigned as home lessons, or, as I prefer to call it, private study,” says Mr Robertson in the report referred to, and adds: “ A teacher who has seen the energy and ungrudged time which children will give to crossword puzzles and such intellectual explorations in papers and magazines might well ask himself if he cannot devise home lessons after that fashion. Inventiveness is almost the first necessity of a teacher, yet a love of routine and of precedent are more common among teachers than that quality. “ For pupils from 14 to 1G years of age homo lessons under present conditions should not require more than from an hour and ahalf to two hours of the evening. Pupils over 1G years of age may be their own assessors in this matter ; the claims of examinations and their own relation to special subjects will mainly be the final determinants. "Above all, it should be borne in mind that ‘ growing up ’ is in itself arduous, and that only by its' normality can even education succeed.” Home lessons have a value in that they induce in the minds of the young regularity, care, neatness, consistent application, or simply consistency, and above all that most valuable of characteristics—system, but they should be easy and never beyond the power of the pupil. Grown-up existence is not easy. All living is a struggle to get something useful and better—and even to get daily bread. Even to hold what one has is a struggle, and education should be of a kind which should fit a boy or girl for the struggle or work of life. There is a danger in education to-day that we are making things too easy, and not encouraging the spirit of initiative and self-reliance, two tilings very necessary for success in after life. There is no Lotus Land of ease, idleness, and continual delights awaiting youth in the life to come except the joy of work well and truly done, and that should be mixed with wisely and properly portioned-out periods of leisure for some healthy recreation for.mind and body. P.S.—Some younpr readers may not like this article : but if they heed its wisdom, some day they will be thankful. * * * KANNATHA. It is proposed by a member of the Alberta House of Commons that the title of Canada shall be changed from the Dominion of Canada to the Kingdom of Canada. Alore than a resolution by the Alberta Assembly, if it were passed, would be necessary to effect such a change, and we do not think it will be accepted. AVlio would change the strong word ''dominion” for such a word as “kingdom?” AVhen Canada was constituted a dominion in 1867 the title by which she should appear as a daughter of the British Empire occasioned considerable difficulty to the statesmen of Canada and the Mother Country. The provinces to be added to Upper and Lower Canada needed an official name, and there was no hesitation in the minds of those who drew' up the Bill. They called it the Kingdom of Canada, as this Alberta M.P. now wishes to do. The Bill passed through many modifications in the , course of months of discussi'n, but the one thing left unchanged to the end was the name. It was to be the Kingdom of Canada. At the last, however. Lord Derby, i Foreign Minister in the British Government, with a touch of that grand old

courtesy which we like to consider a quality of our race, remembered Canada’s great neighbour, the United States, aud decided against the name of Kingdom.

Once the United States was as mneh British territory as Canada and Australia. Her sous wore our own children. AVa quarrelled, came to blows, parted, and saw a Republic arise in the place of a Britisn colony.

Lord Derby imagined, perhaps rightly, that this great and growing Republic would not like- a kingdom as her neighbour ; such a style, he’ thought, would wound her Republican sentiments, and so dominion was substituted for kingdom, and a dominion Canada has ever sir.ee remained.

That is not the only name associated with Canada which conceals interesting history. Canada itself is a piece of history. The name comes, apparently, from the Red Indian word Kannatha, meaning a village or a collection of huts. AA 7 hen the first French discoverers arrived they asked the Red Indians the name of their land. “ Kannatha,” said the red men, and the white men put Canada on tho map.—Children’s Newspaper.