ROTARY.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15272, 23 June 1923, Page 18 (Supplement)

ROTARY.

A WORLD-WIDE FORCE. Professor Osborne, who fills the Chair of Psysiology at the Melbourne University, went to Sydney specially to address the Sydney Rotary Club at its weekly meeting at Farmer’s. He left Australia a year ago for the purpose of professional study, and also to attend as Australian delegate the great International Convention of Rotary in Los Angeles, California. “I may say at once that I was given a most gratifying reception in Los Angeles, and, indeed, wherever I got into touch with Rotary throughout the American Union,” said Professor Osborne, to a representative of the Daily Telegraph. “It seemed to me that a special welcome was extended to Australians, . derived possibly from the camaraderie developed between Australian and American soldiers in the trenches during the war; and possibly also to the fact that the eyes of America are being turned more and more towards the Pacific. Rotary in America is certainly a „great force, and, without question, one of its results, though not specifically proclaimed, Is the development of a better understanding between America and the British Empire. I found the Rotary In every city and town of more than 60 inhabitants which l visited. Always work of a philanthropic character was being conducted by the club, and the community looked to it as a group of men actuated by high ideals and putting such ideals into practice. “The American is more sentimental than we, and announces his emotional feelings more readily; bu,l we must never forget that with them sentiment does not end in mere expression of such, but in very real action. It was very pleasant as a Rotarian delegate to he made heartily welcome wherever I went, and to experience the extreme courtesy with which they met and intuitively anticipated my varous wants. “In Britain I applied myself more especially to scentiflc study. Somehow I got hold of the idea that scientific activity had lessened somewhat, the older investigators being unduly aged by the war, and the younger seeking more profitable openings in commerce. I was quite mistaken. Wherever I went I found scientific research at its highest acme of endeavour. At the meeting of the British Association at Hull, England, which section was excited over some new and important discovery or theory, it was pleasant to find a considerable number of young Australians coming to the fore' in all departments of intellectual activity. One new .and striking feature of British laboratories was the large number of British students from oveseas, America, and the Orient, who had come to gain inspiration in the great centres of British research. In philosophy, history, literature, chemisty, there are now, in Britain young Australans whose future fame is assured. As the attainable emoluments are larger there, they are likely to be permanently lost to the land of their birth; but they keep alive, their patriotic feelings, and do not allow their neighbours to forget that they are Australians.

“Of course the economic depression in England was pretty obvious, and even distressing; but the people were stout-hearted, hoping that the corner had been turned.”