The Wanganui Chronicle. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 1931. MEN WITH HOBBIES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 141, 17 June 1931, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 1931. MEN WITH HOBBIES.

“|7E\V mm with hubbies are ever gaoled.” says I lie Annual Keport of the Prison Commissioners of England. “The greatest need for prison inmates is a hobby.’’ the report continues. This is understandable. A hobby is an intellectual exercise, it is doing something for the very .joy of doing it. It, is the artist and the boy in the man coming out, coming on top and asserting itself. Many men, nay, most men are not built to pursue “intellectual pursuits” using that term in its ordinary acceptation, they are, however, capable of thinking with their hands. The boy who is not of that disposition which finds keen pleasure in reading should be provided with the material for following a hobby. It is part of his education, it is part of his intellectual training just as much as lessons in school. Deprive such a boy of a hobby and you deprive him of self-expression. Not trained to know the joys of self-expression he comes to want to possess things without the effort of acquiring them. The boy with the hobby wants not the prize so much as the experience of winning the prize. That’s the essential difference between a man who is a good citizen and an anti-social person. The one knows the joy of striving; the other thinks only in terms of possession. A hobby will provide the key for many a door, and the absence of that key may result in all doors being closed to a man. The man without a hobby is a man without knowledge of the joy of living.