BE SELF-RELIANT.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1419, 23 October 1923, Page 7

BE SELF-RELIANT.

A MAN'S FIRST DUTY. ' "A man's first duty," said an eminent English scientist, "is to find a way of supporting himself, thereby relieving other people of the necessity of supporting him." That is a shrewd and excellent observation. What may be your nature, whether you feel yourself to be an artist, or experience within you the movings of poesy, it is well to learn to do something that will enable you to exist with taking yourself off other people's backs. The one work to take up is some kind of work the world is willing to pay for. You may be created to do something wonderful or beautiful or wise, but primarily you are created to do do something for men that will persuade them to feed and clothe you. First earn your salt, then come on with your message. In the olden days the Jews taught every child a trade. The youth might grow up to be a learned Rabbi, but on a pinch he could mend chairs. Saint Paul was a tent-maker. He discharged his debt to the race by making tents; he threw in his gospel as boot. It is what you do to boot that brings you glory and honour and praise and power. But don't forget your main duty, which is earning your wage. If you don't have to work for a living it is too bad. You may amount to something, but the chances are against you. A few endowed gentlemen and ladies have helped the world along a little, in the course of history, but not enough to matter. Most people look upon a condition where they would be freed from the struggie for bread and butter and house rents as a heaven devoutly to be wished. Hence we have erected holy orders and universities and scholarships and endowments s,o that superior folks might devote their energies to higher things. For the most part those segregated and sheltered classes have done nothing much but maintain old ideas long after they are dead and buried, or contribute to the already endless bric-a-brac ,of learned uselessness. Wage labour is work. What you do alter you work is play. Your play- is the best thing you do. All true art, philosophy and religion is the soul's play. There's no wage for it, and there never can be. If you work all the time like the endowed folk, you become silly, probably also vicious. If. therefore, you would be normal, healthy and happy, do something each day that mankind is willing to pay for, put forth some effort reducible to the common denominator of human activity—money; do that, first, then do something that cannot be paid for. Perhaps you can do both at the same time.