GREAT BRITAIN’S MORALE

Taranaki Daily News, 14 February 1931, Page 17 (Supplement)

GREAT BRITAIN’S MORALE

EFFECT OF RUSH AND RACKET. STRONGER FIBRE NECESSARY. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Lang, made some interesting observations in praise of the modern girl in his Speech Day address at Cheltenham Women’s College, reports the Daily Mail. Dr. Lang said: “Whatever else may be said about the modern girl—and many things, mostly unjust, are said about her—this I■ will say, she is able now to talk to elderly persons with the most delightful freedom from embarrassment and'constraint. “In the old days girls were so constantly preoccupied with their ‘P’s And o’s,’ and so constantly restricted and constrained in the presence of elderly persons like me, they were very often awkward and embarrassed. That day is gfcme, and there is nothing more delightful than the way in which you are now able to ■ get behind our age or our importance and take us as-we are in ourselves and into your companionship.” ' Speaking of the value of cultivating the habit of reading good literature, Dr. Lang referred to the hold of the bridgeplaying habit in many women: “I put it to you whether you want to spend your time in these dreary, desultory efforts to get over the blank hours; , or whether in your leisure you will keep company with the immortals? “The world outside is so full, increasingly, of rush and racket, that that rush and racket frays the spirit and makes it , thin, superficial and weak. The soul cannot possess itself unless it learns to be still. i Dr. Lang declared that the thing most wanted at the present time and on which everything else depended was the strengthening of the moral fibre of the people. He said:.

“It has grown slack. The reasons are many and obvious. The standard of comfort has happily grown and widened, but it has created so many expectations of conifort and ease and amusement, surrounded people with such a sense of security, that they are losing the virility and native resourcefulness of their character. - “The need at this anxious time is not ' merely the rationalisation of industries, relief work, or Imperial expansion-—how-ever necessary some or all of these may be—for without something else these will either be never achieved or else be in-effective. /' “The final need is to restore and strengthen the moral fibre of the home; and every girl who brings from school a character disciplined and exercised in responsibility is bringing an invaluable asset to the State and to the life of the country.” . /■ .