DRIFT TO THE CITIES

Taranaki Daily News, 27 January 1934, Page 9

DRIFT TO THE CITIES

“CURSE OF THE DOMINION.” DR. TRUBY KING’S ADVICE. The modern curse of this country is that the people can’t keep out of the cities. This declaration -by Sir Truby -King, arrested the attention of members of the Palmerston North Hospital Board on Wednesday. . . Sir Truby was recounting how he hah been inspired to take up his wprk on behalf of the babies of New Zealand and in the course of his talk made other statements which gave food for thought. The first settlers, he said, had no idea when they came to New Zealand, of sending things to England. They had the idea of founding a great country and the first people, under those circumstances, would have been the flower of New Zealand. They would have been the people who had founded a new race and there was a good chance for us, but how were we now going to master this tendency of having only one or two children which' is making us a barren race? We cannot import our population. It is not worth having. We have to breed our stock and the whole training of the nation should be in the direction of rearing a competent race. “The population of Wellington in no very long time will be half a million, added Sir Truby, “and that is as much as it ought to be. Don't let us get an inflated population as is found, in Sydney and Melbourne, and don’t let us have an inflated capital like London with its ten millions and which is growing rapidly every year. Can you say what that populaton is like? It would only be a greater burden. Let us make our own children healthy animals for the first seven or eight years. You have not got to send them to school to educate them. Look what children can learn in that time. They learn some of the most important things in the world. They learn to stand upright, and that is a great achievement. “And what about the mind? Is it developing without any teaching from the mother? I will tell you something. At about four years the bones of the skull become set and that is why a child at four years can wear its father’s hat. What has it learnt? It has learnt to express itself well by that. time. It will never learn another language as long as it lives, in most cases. The man can go to Oxford or Cambridge and even though the mind is well cultured, he will not venture to speak before an audience in French. By six years of age the child has also formed its character. There is a good deal of room for us to think about these things,” Sir Truby concluded.