NEW LITERARY ASSOCIATION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 819, 18 January 1868, Page 2

NEW LITERARY ASSOCIATION

On Wednesday evening the Rev. Mr Elmslie delivered a lecture to young men, at the close of which measures were taken to establish a society, having for its object the intellectual improvement of the young men of the town—a society without the least denominational or political bias. The proposal was warmly received by the meeting, and nearly fifty names were enrolled as intending members. After some conversation a provisional committee, consisting of the Rev. Mr Elmslie, Messrs Watt, Willcox, W. Taylor, P. Bell, McCaul, Cass, Aitken, and Anderson, was appointed to bring up a draft of rules for adoption, and generally to take steps for the formation of the society, which, when fully organised, will come in place of one of a resembling character which has quietly subsided. A soffiee or conversazione to inaugurate the new society is also spoken of, to be held in a fortnight or three weeks hence.

And so the old literary society is dead—dead of W(h)at ? Nevermind. Snip, snap, snout, This tale’s told out.

Let us hope that something more durable may now be formed. We need hardly say that we desire the progress and prosperity of the proposed society. The idea is an excellent one. It is comparatively easy, however, to start a thing of this kind, it is in carrying it on that the difficulty arises—not insurmountable by any means, but a difficulty. Variety and instruction require to be combined. A little badinage may be permitted, but it is exceedingly apt to degenerate into frivolity and silly jesting, to the hindrance of proper discussion. A number of excellent young men, we know, will gladly attend the meetings with a view to their intellectual improvement, and there are few nobler objects than to guide and accompany such inquirers into fresh fields and pastures new in literature or science, and to seek to enkindle in them a high ambition. But these young men, although the very bone and sinew of a literary society, are diffident and require to be gently drawn out, whereas there are fgenerally four or half-a-dozen smatterers mere sounding brass —who are extremely fond of hearing themselves talk, but who, having nothing to say, can speak on indefinitely ; these absorb the time of the meetings and weary the patience of listeners ; and this process repeated from week to week first deadens the enthusiasm and then minifies the attendance, until inadvertently some improper subject or some dispute arises—the appointment, it may be, of some unfit office-bearer is made—when the whole affair comes to an untimely end.

Lt is unnecessary to say that the publichouse is a tremendous enemy to mental as well as moral improvement, but it may be useful to remark that another enemy, less gross and perhaps little thought of, wouldalso need to be sedulously fought against. The youthful mind must be disabused of those false views of life —those wretched conceptions of character —and those dangerous errors in social and religious belief, which a portion of our literature disseminates among the public. What charms have essays, or even debates or recitations, when compared to the transports of the last trashy novel — compared to the bliss of being beguiled from the hard reality of life into the dazzling company of supernaturally beautiful (though ungrammatically tragic) ladies — gifted and awfully brave young men with very thin swords and very thick beads—untameable desperadoes, who are continually murdering some one and laughing (a la third robber) at the perfidious character of the human race ? These are one division of the foes which those who seek to elevate and better the colony generally and its young men especially have to cast out ere they can take the city ; these are one kind of the strongholds that must be taken, ere our young people will be induced to read books that require care and some measure of thought to master their contents. We throw out these hints in the hope that they may be useful to the promoters of the new society, whose progress we shall have much pleasure in chronicling from time to time.