CIGARETTE PAPERS.

Southland Times, Issue 21649, 10 March 1932, Page 8

CIGARETTE PAPERS.

PROBLEMS OF LEISURE. Someone has been advising young people to use their heads. Most old folk will assure you that the juveniles to-day' are headstrong without having strong heads; but what they really mean is that young people are too fond of taking things readymade. In an age boasting so much canned music, canned food, canned literature, people find they can’t work up enough energy’ to provide themselves with amusement. Dancing to-day is largely a matter of static wriggling, and parties are aimless gatherings for aimless talk which leaves everybody so bored that everybody s principal des’ire is to escape consciousness. If anyone set out to find evidence of the failure of our education system, he would find it, despite the powerful defences in full-sounding phrases, in the rapidity with which young people become tired of themselves. Busy people are never in danger of boredom, but leisure can become tiring very easily. Perhaps young people are taught so assiduously to fit themselves for jobs, that when they are not employed in business they are helpless because they cannot use leisure.

And yet there are hundreds of ways in which leisure can be made interesting, though only through active participation in something demanding the use of the brain. The dancer who studies the dance can use it for such profitable development that it never becomes boring; but those who merely meander through it quickly exhaust the purely physical delights. Music, instrumental and vocal, offers a fine field of inexhaustible interest. And there are hundreds of other opportunities. Science can be fascinating for a lifetime. All of these activities require some initial training and all demand action, but only- the lazy people fail to supply those needs if there is encouragement. Perhaps much of the fault lies at the door of the older people who are too selfish to take up the leadership which is their duty. The Job of helping young people is really interesting, and the rewards are valuable, if you look at them in the right way. The problem of leisure is a difficult one, and if it is not tackled Satan will be the provider. —CRITICUS.