PROBLEM OF LEISURE

Taranaki Daily News, 4 January 1935, Page 8

PROBLEM OF LEISURE

EDUCATION REQUIRED GIGANTIC TASK OF FUTURE. CONSTRUCTIVE EFFORT NEEDED

(By Maire M. Arthur.) One of the problems of the immediate future will be the difficulty of dealing with the large amount of leisure people are likely to have at their disposal. In many cases this leisure has been thrust upon them. Unemployment has brought unwanted and unoccupied time, and the insecurity of life does not leave the mmd free to utilise this leisure. • . It is very difficult to educate for leisure because leisure means different things to different people. Vie already possess ample means of killing time; we have the cinema, the radio and athletic sports, but looking on is a devitalised form of leisure and there is little or no effort on the part of the individual. . The only leisure of real value to the individual is constructive leisure, physical or intellectual. Leisure to be used intelligently should help the individual to discover the adventure of life. A life devoid of adventure is dull and commonplace and leaves the stamp of monotony on the mmd. Humanity has many potentialities, but the daily task hitherto has left little time for discovery. The adventure of discovery would be that of finding out our true vocations and in so doing bringing a completeness and a wholeness to lives that are lacking in vitality.

EVER-INCREASING LEISURE. The future with its ever-increasing inventions will be responsible for ever-in-creasing leisure, and it is necessary to take thought on the matter for the protection of youth. People are beginning to realise that unless leisure is directed it may be more of a setback than an asset to social order. In many cases leisure coupled with empty minds leads to crime and encourages vice, Dr. Johnson once said: “Sir, the reason why a man drinks is that he is not interesting enough to himself to pass his leisure time without it.” Humanity must be driven from within as well as without to discover greater ingenuity in the use of leisure. The solution should begin with a realisation of the kind of life one wants to live, and having realised it, we should hitch our waggon to that star. In most cases our aspirations will carry us through. People must be educated to enjoy the opportunity given to them for development in the cultivation of individual skill or in the deeper cultivation of the mind. Leisure must be used to enrich life and not to become a source of mere boredom. Within the next ten years the cultural activities of life will take central place; education will grow in quantity and quality. With the necessary education time will be given to study the universe in which we live and to create in art and science. The true use of leisure will become a sort of religion. People will begin to take up the habit of study dropped since school and college days, and they will endeavour to complete the discipline of thinking. Men will endeavour to recreate and re-enact a vision of the world penetrated with influencing rationality.

TIME’S CHALLENGE. Time will prove a challenge to organisations to create a programme that will merft the consideration of people with leisure. Individual development will lead to communal development and so help other individuals to their own initiative. Men will then endeavour to outdo themselves in insight, sacrifice and self-disci-pline and in effort to bring the lives of others to usefulness.

The preliminary effort to educate for coming youth will depend upon various educational organisations because in thousands of cases the parents themselves will not be educable along these lines. The solution will come not only through supervision but also through legislation. Ways and means will have to be provided, and in such breadth and scope that only States can deal with the tremendous question. There are a great many still unused and and undiscovered assets in the human race and undeveloped possibilities in human, relationship. We must feel that as we go ahead into the future before us we are going with vision and with knowledge, the knowledge that will help us to arouse the community to action in the right use of leisure, and to a concept of civilisation as Albert Schwentzer’s prophesy has it: “The stupid arrogance of thinking ourselves civilised loses its power over us . . . when we venture to face the truth that with so much progress in knowledge and power, true civilisation has become not easier but harder. The problem of mutual relationships between the spiritual and the material dawns upon us. A deepened ethical evil to progress which springs from thought will lead us back then out of uncivilisation and its misery to true civilisation.”