ROTARY’S IDEALS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 58, 10 March 1937, Page 6

ROTARY’S IDEALS

SPIRIT OF SERVICE BOUNDLESS OPPORTUNITIES AUSTRALIAN ROTARIAN’S ADDRESS The highest spiritual ideals and fellowship of Rotary and the wide scope of activity presenting itself to Rotarians in all countries was outlined by Rotarian George Smith, president of the Gouldburn Rotary Club of New South Wales, in an address to members of the Wanganui Rotary Club last evening. Rotarian A. McSkimming presided. “Men have to overcome many difficulties in life. Have any of you ever stopped to think of what it takes to make a good Rotarian?” said Rotarian Smith. A Rotarian was not an ordinary man, a crook, a man who was dishonest in business or lived a bad life. Rotary did not want that type of man but the man who was clean in his business dealings, a man from whom one could seek advice and who would give it from his heart and the man who treated his wife and his family well and was unselfish in his actions and thoughts. If a man did not measure up to these ideals, Rotary did not want him and should not have him. If a man did not honour and love those he should then he was not a Rotarian; he might belong to a Rotary Club and wear a badge but he was not a Rotarian at heart, if he measured up to these standards, however, then he should be proud to be a Rotarian and should endeavour to the best of his ability to live up to i these high ideals. The Spirit of the Pioneers. Rotarian Smith said that he was proud of the courage of the men and women who left their homes and sold their possession to take a six months’ journey to an unknown land not knowing what the future held in store for them. To-day girls before they were married wanted to know whether their prospective husbands could keep them, buy them golf clubs and provide them with motor cars. The pioneering women were not like that; they had gone through many difficulties for the love of one man in helping to clear the land and carve out a home. These mothers reared children under these conditions; they gathered the children around them at night and instilled into them the desire to live a good life. Their mothers and fathers had set them good examples and they had developed into giants mentally and physically, becoming the best people the world ever knew. This generation, said Rotarian Smith, reared a new generation which had everything provided for it. The boys and girls intermingled with the city people and had broken away from the old homes. The homes that had made the giants of body and mind were forsaken for flats in the city and the boys and girls enjoyed luxury until the depression came along. The fathers had to ask them to return but many of the boys and girls, and their mothers, too, had refused to return and give up their lives of luxury. Many of the boys in their desire for luxurv had got themselves into trouble and the girls, after living fast lives, had gone 1o destruction.

Influence of Parents. There were, said the speaker, certain conditions which were essential for the proper rearing of boys and girls. When a woman took her daughter to a fashionable hotel and sat sipping cocktails day after day she was not a woman fit to rear children. He was not a wowser, neither was he narrow-minded, but he had some concern for the country and its future. The training of a child and its care were the responsibilities of the mother. Sport was one of the finest things in the world for youth but, like a lot of other things, the sense of balance should not be lost sight or. The home was the cradle of the child, said Rotarian Smith. Children reared in a good home were likely to become successful men and women in life, but children reared in a bad atmosphere laced life with a severe handicap. Recently he had investigated the home life and upbringing of 400 boys under the age of 25 years who were serving sentences of two years and over and he had ascertained that, with the exception of 37 cases, the boys had had a break in their home life. In every community there were boys and girls who did not have a fair go in life. Commencing five years ago, the Goulburn Rotary Club had sent a number of these boys to the coast as a community service activity. These boys were taken from homes where the parents were not fit to rear them—not because of criminal reasons but for other reasons. The boys were taken to large industrial works and factories where everything was explained to them and their cutlooks were soon changed. Some of these boys were now occupying really high positions where otherwise their lot in life would not have been a happy one. Benefits of Struggle. Early struggles in life produced the best in every man, said the speaker. The best Rotarians were usually those men who had experienced a multitude of troubles and difficulties and had come through the ordeal with flying colours. These ideals, if cherisned in the hearts of men, would produce the best types of people who would seek to produce peace on earth and goodwill toward men. He believed that there was a tremendous need for help not among those who were gathered to listen to him but in the world outside in the trade and traffic of life where men met men. Help was needed in directions. Rotary was comparatively new but it was growing and spreading througn the influence of intelligent men. Rotarians were unable to look back on centuries of achievement, but to great ideals which remained unchallenged in the world to-day. All Rotary activity should spring from the heart. There was no finer influence in the world for bringing men together than Rotary, which was as deep as one's heart and as boundless as the blue vault of the heavens. It enabled men to go to one another and discuss something that was equally disagreeable to both and then shake hands and then go away the best of friends. Rotarian George Smith was accorded a hearty vote of thanks, Rotarians paying personal tributes to the inspiring nature of his address.