STUDENTS’ CONFERENCE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9652, 4 January 1910, Page 5

STUDENTS’ CONFERENCE.

Yesterday’s meetings of the Conference at Marton were exceptionally well attended both by the Students and the people of Marton. In the evening the accommodation of St. Andrews’ Hail v/as taxed to the uttermost—a fact that is taken to indicate the growing interest in, and appreciation of the addresses that are from time to time being delivered.

Yesterday morning, Mr J. Thornton, principal of tTe Ante College, Hawke’s Bay. addressed the Conference on the sabjecb of “The Religious Responsibility of the School Teacher.’’ Mr Thornton’s great practical-experience of school life and work addedjncreased weight to his words. He emphasised the fact that all education should aim at the formation of character. If that was not the result of teaching in every school, secular or otherwise, then than teaching was a failure. Since character building was the end of education it became apparent that education could not afford to neglect religions training because in the words of the speaker “There is no morality without Christianity, ’’ Education, according to Mr Thornton, was the training of the/tripartite human nature. There was need in all education for the recognition of body, mind and spirit, bat in physical and intellectual develop-

men!: the influence of the spiritual should be ,felt. Bodily and mental training existed not as ends in themselves, but as means to spiritual and truly moral ends. Mr Thornton then wont on to indicate certain leading principles that should regulate _ the teacher’s approach to the spirit uni side of the child, aad ended' by emphasising strongly the greatness of the responsibility resting upon all who took up tha work of educating the children in our schools. A discussion cn the subject is to take place this morning, .-cd, as there is a large number ;.f students in Com ference, a profit ble a;:d interesting debate thou Id result. In the nftcroocn the Conference played a tennis ma'ch against the Mar to a Tenuis Club. A lull account of this contest appears elsewhere in this Sssur.

lu the evening, owir-cr to the unavoidable absence of the.P«ev. W. A. Evans, M.A., the travelling secretary of the Students’ Christian Union, Mr J. T. Law too, M.A., ga*s the address on “The Place of the Student Christian Union Movement in National Life.” Mr_ Lawton spoke from great experience and deep study :of the whole siraat’c-n. The World’s Student Christian Federation has ha-i a brief bat remarkable history. lia sources are to ba found in the’Y.M.O.A, movement started in Britain by Sir George Williams. The Y.M.U.A, invaded the Universities, mul in 1895 the Students’ movement _ was inaugurated. The motto chosen was the evangelisation «f the world u\ this generation, and, so the Student Federation has shown itself to [,be one of tho most important factors in this work of evangelisation. The numbers of the movement have rapidly grown To-days::; the active membership of the Olmvt'.WJ Union there are 138,000 students ana professors. Every civilised country in the world aad every nationality that has anything like a serious University education for young men and women have also a Student Christian Union. This will make for the peace of the world' in no small It is generally admitted' that the leaders of the nation come from the educated class, and when members-of the educated class meet together ;ia Christian fellowship ami goodwill, the effect is hardly to be estimated.’ Conference which met in Tokio, Japan, in 1907—the first intematiernu conference. of any kind to be held to Asia-produced, to _ tha statement of the then Prune Minister of Japan, a tremendous effect upon the people of Japan ana the Students of China studying io Japan, la 1911 the next Word’s Conference will meet in Oonstantinpoie, the scene of the birth of a new Constitution in Turkey, Such a conference cannot fail to influence deeply the naiads of the young Turkish party interested as that party is in real social and intellectual progress. The Conference closed yesterday’s session by listening to the third of the devotional meditations on “Abiding Realities,” delivered by the Rev. J. Jolly., M.A., Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Charon of New Zealand.