THE Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. FRIDAY, 24th JULY, 1903. FACTORS IN CITIZENSHIP.

Southland Times, Issue 19106, 24 July 1903, Page 2

THE Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. FRIDAY, 24th JULY, 1903. FACTORS IN CITIZENSHIP.

Mr H. S. Weils, the imaginative o.uthor of "The Time Machine," "The Martians," " Anticipations." and other scientific novels, is contributing- to the Fortnightly Review a series of grticles entitled " Mankind in the Making." Many of his ideas are striking and original, and his criticisms are always suggestive. The problem for the State, he says, is how to enable every child born into it to develop into the best possiblo adult form. Among the complex influences which contribute to the moulding of the average child into the average citizen, the earliest is that of the home, that term being used in the sense of that group of personalities with whom the growing imperial citizen is in close, constant .contact until he reaches fifteen or sixteen. This group of people will be in constant reaction upon him, and it is this home-circle that will deter- 1 mine what one "may call the child's j initial circle of thought, which, though it ruay subsequently be enlarged and modified, has its main trend unalterably fixed in childhood. The effects of home influence, indeed, rank next to those of heredity in shaping the destiny. The constitui tion of the home and the relatipns of its various members are determined by tradition, and in the unlettered, j untravelling past, this factor was altogether dominant. Nowadays tradition is capable of a much greater degree of modification in each generation, "and. this arrives through two distinct channels — economic and domestic conditions, and the general atmosphere of thought in which a man lives and breathes. Both the channels of modification admit of control.. Put the means of education easily within the reach of all, tuujco promotion from, the ranks, in. the Army, in the Navy, in all business concerns, possible and natural, and — so Mr Wells declares I—you1 — you will beat tradition.. -Economic conditions are no longer-/ looked on as- inflexible laws ;■ " they are made and; compact of the human will, and by tariffs, by trade, regulation and ' organisation " fresh factors may be introduced to work improvement. The influx of modifying suggestions from current thought into the home |Can also be controlled, though the author admits this to be " a subtle %hd vast enterprise." Humajn thought and imagination realises itself in, conscious human will and act, and symbolises itself in "all human institutions and contrivances, from the steam-engine to the ploughed field, froon the bluepill to the printing press." The second .of the complex influences acting on the child is the school, although it is important- to remember that it is only one of many, Mr Wells declares emphatically that "the tendency of the present time is enormously to exaggerate the importance of school in development," and to ask the schoolmaster to invade the provinces of the parent, clergyman, statesman, author and journalist. For in addition to intellectual development we demand ' ' moral and ethical training and supervision, aesthetic guidance, Hhe implanting of a taste for the best in literature, in #rt; in conduct, the clue to success in commerce, and . th.e seeds of a line, passionate patriotism." In addition to the complex, difficult and honoxirable task of intellectual development, we look to the schoolmaster "to compensate for all that is slovenly in our homes, dishonest in our economic conditions, and slack and vulgar in our public^ life." Among the things the school hap no business to attempt are, according to Mr Wells, " the formation 'of character," moral and ethical discussion, religious instruction, the supervision of the pbild's relations to ''nature," .ait, and literature, and the effort to supply' the key that will open „up the way to wealth. Of course, as ho admits, the school is. bound, quite without ethical pretension, . to influence the moral growth of the child, It is there that, it should acquire the habit arid disposition towards ' industry, and tho perception, that obstacles yield to resolute attack/Though Mr Wells believes thajb religion ' is tho crown 'of the edifice we buHd, he is decidedly opposed to the imparting of religious instruction in schools. To him the ideas and emotions arising in Uio human ,inind, through reflection on tho Divine being, " appear at once too great and too remote, " too' intimate and too - subtle for objective -treatment." Religion cannot bo got into daily lessons of 6ne/"hour; as "if it were' a piecp of geography Jnor : has it "the-indes-tructible,, inpesijjlo recipes u. pf g,

portable philosophy.,. The intellectual j foundation of the mind lies in school- ' inff, and the ethical foundation lies in habit, and we seek to misuse religion if we look on it as a chea,p substitute for these. Nor is the training of " the powers of observation," according to Mr Wells, part of the schoolmaster's duty. The shape, and direction of one's private obser-^ vation, he says, is no . more the schoolmaster's business than the shape and direction of one's 1 nose. It is the artist that must help and in- I spire observation, although he cannot create it. Mr Wells has a sincere belief in the helpfulness of good litera- i ture and good theatres, in which, without any clumsy insistence upon moral points, fine actions iwe finely displayed and baseness is seen to be base. This part of his subject the author treats with considerable force and directness. Tn effect he says, " Make your state healthy, your economic life healthy and honest, be honest and truthful in the pulpit, behind the counter, in the office, and your children will need no specific ethical teaching ; they will inhale right. And without these things all the ethical teaching in the world will only sour to cant at tho first wind of the breath of the world."

After the school in the great training process, the formative influences broaden out round the citizen until they take the form of his world. And this, like the home, can be resolved into three elements— tradition, or the influence of the past, which element is firmly established ; the contemporary interaction of econoniic forces.; and the current thought of the world, as expressed in literature, the drama, the pulpit and the press. And it is in the two latter elements —in economic and social conditions, and in literary and scientific activity —that the possibilities rest of improving the social fabric.