Whittingtons of To-day.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 6, 5 August 1908, Page 47

Whittingtons of To-day.

WHY THEY FAIL IN THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE. The recent ease of the father summoned at the Marylebone Police Court for “conscientiously objecting” to send his sons to school until they are eleven raises the question whether the education given in our schools is really calculated to make successful and efficient citizens, remarks a writer in a London paper. ’ Dick Whittington, the son of a gentlenutn, came to London to make his fortune—and succeeded. Why? Because the time was ripe for bis enterprise, and he was perfectly adapted to make the best of his environments. The lights of London drew Dick Whittington to his fortune. They have not lost their power of lure. Still they

draw Dick Whittingtons to town in thousands and in tens of thousands—no longer, however, to fortune, but to doom. Why? Because the times are stale for such enterprises as our Dick Whittingtons may hazard, and they are ill-adapted to triumph over circumstances. Of the thousands of Dick Whittingtons in the country, and of the thousands in the town, many are as good men as the great Dick Whittington, many- are better men. You and 1 might have been thrice Lord Mayor of London had we lived in the great Dick’s day. It is terrible to look into the faces of thesp potential Lord Mayors of to-day. They have hungry faces; and with strained, eager eyes they scan the advertisement columns of the newspapers that may lead them to their bread. At last they read of a job that may suit their powers; they make a note of it, and hurry away, only to return next morning. RAVENOUS WOLVES. Or see what happens when a foreman of building works steps into the street to demand labour. He is a foreman, perhaps, where ten thousand workmen are employed. He asks for six navvies; and at his appearance a hundred labourers who have been waiting to be hired spring forward as one man, or as a pack of ravenous wolves.

Or look at the men waiting outside the doors of the night-shelters—clever men, brawny men, Oxford men, skilled mechanics, rubbing elbows with the wasters, A police report says of a night-shelter at Falkirk, which housed 2,860 people in three months: “The total amount of money found on these 2,860 was £2 4/; in sums ranging from Id to 4d.” Advertisers arc astounded at what happens wffien they offer a post. A firm seeks a packer at .£ I a week, and is besieged by 500 applicants. A glass-bottle blower advertises for an apprentice, and turns away 300 applicants before noon. A staging obstructs the way to a foreman’s office in a City building where a job is vacant, and eleven men rush over it so furiously that it Hashes in beneath them, and they have to go to hospital with' broken legs and ribs. Were you to advertise for a red-haired man who squinted to do secretarial work, your street would be full of rcd-luiirod, squinting Dick Whittingtons. Or were you to advertise for a perfect lady- to take charge of a little girl in.return for a comfortable home and dress allowance, a thousand perfect ladies wdnld proffer their services. THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE. Now science teaches <ha,t in all life there is a struggle for existence, but that whether the battle is. fotrgljt between allied or unallied species, the victory is never doubtful—it is assured to the plant or the animal that has some advantage, however slight, which its opponent lacks. So those plants in ft dty soil whose

leaves have the thickest hairs upon them will absorb the most moisture from the air, and will thrive best. Those falcons with the most powerful retractile talons wherewith to seize their prey will survive longest. Varieties of the antitype of the giraffe with longer necks than usual at once secured a fresh range of pasture, and on the first scarcity of food outlived their shorter-necked companions. The birds strongest cn the wing reach the land whither they migrate, while the weaker perish. So with man; victory is assured to him with some advantage, however slight, which his opponents lack. It may be that survival is secured only- by retreat, as the sloth goes to the tree, the mole to his burrow, or man to the mine which others fear to enter; but the victory is none the less complete. A retreat, a falling from a high estate, does not necessarily prevent a corresponding advance, or ascension, should occasion come. On the vast pampas plains of La Plata there lives an opossum which, perfectly adapted by Nature to a life in trees, yet has existed for thoussands of years where no trees are to be seen, its beautiful, grasping hands pressed to the ground, its prehensile tail dragging, idle and tireless, behind it. Yet if the opossum should be brought to a tree it will climb at onee with all the agility of a monkey.

FALLING TO RISE. And so, if a man adapted to one set of circumstances—say, a red seat in the House of Lords — retreats to another for which ho is also adapted, though not designed for it—say. to a carpenter’s bench or to the tail of a plough he will survive. ho will conquer; and in the end, if the chance comes, he will sit quite naturally on the predestined red seat. If there is a moral to these reflections it is to be found in this idea, which has taken hold of a few far-sighted people (the Marylebone parent among them)—• that in these days of a struggle for existence more terrible than England has ever known before, children should be so educated as to be ready to hold their own in more than one set of circumstances. Nobody is secure to-day. The rich man may lose his money, and is likely to be despoiled of his estates. Lt-t him, ‘then, educate his sons to be able to succeed as foresters, carpenters, ploughmen, packers, or glass-blowers; and let his daughters be mistresses of the languages, tile typewriter, the cooking-range, the sewing machine, the piano, or the arts that raise flowers from seeds, or sell cabbages on markets. Let every Dick Whittington start for London with some advantage, however slight, which his opponents lack, and his victory in the struggle for existence shall never be doubtful. Why Diek Whittingtons fail to-day is because they have not got longer necks than the other giraffes. What is wanted is a practical and allround training for the battle of life.