DAY BY DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 103, Issue 17385, 23 April 1928, Page 4

DAY BY DAY.

“Men speak so much of government,” writes President Nic-

Liberty and Government.

■holas Murray Butler, of Columbia University, “depon'd, and increasingly, so much upon government; and so constantly seek, and increasingly, to use (he power of government, that 'they quilc overlook the fact that among a free people government is everywhere and always subordinate to liberty. Free men have themselves erected government and have given it for domain and occupation a very small part of all that constitutes their activity, physical, intellectual, social, moral, economic, reserving the vast and unlimited remainder as the sphere of liberty. One of the scholar’s' chicfest needs is protection in his becoming freedom and its exercise. The scholar who in sincerity and knowledge criticises or dissents from some well-establish-ed institution, idea, or practice, or some new exhibition of folly or stupidity, is as much entitled to that dissent as his fellow who defends what this scholar condemns. This is one of the hardest lessons for public opinion in a democracy to learn. The persecuting instinct is so deep and so widespread and the passion for uniformity and conformity is so strong that many a missile will continue to be levelled at the devoted bead of any scholar who dissents from a prevailing or a popular judgment It seems to be forgotten, however that if he does not dissent, such being his honest conviction, he ceases to be a scholar and falls hack into the mob of those who have their thinking done for them and in whose lives passion and quickly Hitting emotions take the place of ideas knowledge as controlling Jhrccs.