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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 68

Young New Zealand

Young New Zealand.

Our Girls.

My Dear Girls

The editor of Zealandia has paid me the compliment of requesting me to address to you a few lines from month to month, touching upon such subjects as seem to me calculated to interest, amuse, or instruct you. May I hope that you on your side will help me a little by telling me of any new game, &c., or asking for information on any subject near to your hearts? If you will do this, I have good hope that "Our Girls' Page" will prove both acceptable and useful to those for whom it is intended.

This month I should like to bring before your notice the advantages of what are termed "Magazine Clubs," especially to those who live in the country, and yet do not like to feel themselves behind the times in general information and knowledge of what is going on in the great world around.

The idea is to form a society of girls; each girl takes in a magazine, and once a week—or oftener, if desired—the party meet at afternoon tea, to discuss, instead of scandal and fashion, selected articles from their magazines. Each member of the club makes her own selection from her own magazine, thus giving play to her own individual tastes, and training the critical faculties, which are of such value in teaching people to discriminate between the relative merits and demerits of literary work.

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The reading of every article is sure to suggest pleasant subjects for conversation, and sometimes for discussion; and the little social gathering can be made useful in other ways as a relaxation from home work, or the opportunity of plying one's needle for a Dorcas or other society.

Of course each club must form its own rules, guided by special circumstances of time and place. These rules should be as few and simple as possible, but when once made they should be strictly adhered to, as nothing is more demoralising than the habitual breaking of any rule, however trifling.

The magazines should be exchanged among the members at stated times, and for one year they should be the property of the club as a whole, and should then revert to the members who ordered them.

I have known of several of these magazine clubs at Home, and have heard of at least one in New Zealand. They are easily managed, not expensive, and calculated to give pleasure to a wide circle of friends; and I think that if some of my girl readers would try the experiment of starting one, they would probably thank me for the suggestion.

I append a list of a few suitable magazines, but the number is infinite, and others will occur to every reader.—Your sincere friend,

F. E. Cotton.

Roslyn.

List of Magazines.

"Harper's Young People," "St. Nicholas," "Atalanta," "Monthly packet," "Good Words" and "Good Words for the Young," "Leisure Hour," "The Girls' Own," "Chambers'," "English Illustrated "—not forgetting our own Zealandia, of course.

Our Boys.

It cannot be too often repeated that the boys of to-day are the men of tomorrow. It was the custom of an ancient nation at certain festivals to have a procession in which old men led the way, feebly shouting—

Once in battle bold we shone.

The middle-aged men came next, answering vigorously—

Try us, our vigour is not gone.

And the boys, who brought up the rear, sang—not in a spirit of brag, I trust, but with some sense of personal responsibility—

To us belongs the palm alone,

Something similar to this is taking place to-day. Three ages are swarming across the islands. We don't see the divisions nor hear their thoughts; but the old men are everywhere retiring, men in the prime of life are taking their place, and the younger men and boys are pressing on to mingle in the fray. Have you read Emerson's fine paper on "The Young American?" If you have you will be sure to have been struck with this bright, inspiring nought:—"I call upon you, young men, to obey your heart, and be the nobility of this land" (ii., page 305); "Every great and memorable community has consisted of formidable individuals who, like the Roman or the Spartan, lent his own spirit to the State and made it great. Yet only by the supernatural is a man made strong; nothing is so weak as an egotist" (p. 305. That is just it. We would have the Young New Zealander become a page 42 bright, manly, noble fellow. Strength and agility of body, keenness and fullness of mind, pureness and greatness of spirit, are all necessary to help you to take your place amongst the noblest of our future citizens. James Russell Lowell says—

Be noble! and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping, but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.
Then wilt thou see it gleam in many eyes.
Then will pure light around thy path be shed,
And thou wilt nevermore be sad or lone!

No one can have read Marzio's "Crucifix" without pausing at this passage:-"As we grow older, life becomes the expression of a mood, according to the way we have lived. He who seeks peace will find that with advancing age the peaceful moment, that once came so seldom, returns more readily, and that at last the moments unite to make hours, and the hours to build up days and years. He who stoops to petty strife will find that the oft-recurring quarrel has power to perpetuate the discontented weakness out of which it springs, and that it can make all life a hell. He who rejoices in action will learn that activity becomes a habit, and at last excludes the possibility of rest, and the desire for it, and his lot is the best, for the momentary gladness in a great deed well done is worth a millennium of sinless, nerveless tranquility" (p. 89).

This page is intended for boys such as fill the upper standards in our public schools, or for boys who have just left school and have begun the battle of life, and I cannot believe that what has been written is above them. If I know boys, they like reading something with "grit" in it. They prefer the man who is trying to help them to look up, to him who comes down to their exact level. They will therefore perceive that the aim and drift of the above is to kindle their best feelings and to assist them in realising the enormous power of habit.

I had intended saying much about games, outdoor and indoor, about habits of observation, of reading, and of thinking, but my allotted space is more than filled, and I must postpone the pleasure until next month. Meantime our editor would be very glad indeed to get letters from "Our Boys" suggesting subjects to write about, telling him of new games, seeking his advice, asking for help in any difficulty, and generally treating him—as he wishes to be treated—as a kind friend and helper to the boys of New Zealand.

My Rata Tree.

My Rata tree! my Rata tree! great was thy shadow.
Thou wert my shelter when the roaring tempests shook the hills.
In thy strength I dwelt securely; in thy shadow I felt no fear.
Thou art fallen! thou art fallen! gone for ever to thy long sleep.
Gone is my refuge from the icy blasts; gone is my shelter from the wintry storms.

Rerenga! Arise, O Defender of thy people! Awake, O Helper of the helpless!
Uplift, uplift thy voice! Let mine cars once more rejoice in thy words of wisdom.

Why is silence my reply?—why no answer to the cry of my yearning?
Who shall now be our Vindicator? Where, O where is my strong defence?

O Rerenga! Rerenga! Rerenga! Sorrow is in my bones; desolation is in my heart:
My Rata tree is fallen—fallen—fallen, and darkness clouds my soul.

King Country, May, 1889.