“NO PLACE LIKE HOME"

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 47, 25 February 1941, Page 8

“NO PLACE LIKE HOME"

AN ELOQUENT TRIBUTE This is the time of year when the word “home” is close to the people’s hearts. "We hear much about housing schemes nowadays. But man’s need is for a home rather than a house,” says a South African writer. For the home is the particular and needful possession of the children, their mother and the breadwinner. A house may be full of bitterness and strife, but a home is the sanctuary of the family; it is what men light for —hearth and home; it is what men dream of as they labour. In the phraseology of our day, to ‘keep the home fires burning’ is the inspiration of all nobly-directed effort. “So let us talk of the people’s homes, not of mere shelters from the elements, not of houses to be constructed on economic or sub-economic lines, but of the creation of homes, nests, refuges from distress, sanctuaries, shrines, temples of an abiding peace. ’Home’ connotes no mere shelter, but a fit setting for the development of spiritual ideals and purposes. "A learned Chinese emperor had a pig that he prized so highly that he built a palace for it, but the pig remained a pig, and the palace was wasted. There can be no home unless those that dwell therein are worthy of such a sanctuary of the domestic affections and ideals. "The savage inhabits his tent or cave, or forest lair with a maximum of content; his mind being atuned to a material code of living, he does not prize those things which a home stands for. As we advance from savagery, we learn new ideals of culture, privacy and peace, and it is these we envision in the word ‘home.’ ”