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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol 4, No. 6. June 18, 1941
[Introduction]
"The time has come when we ought to stand up and declare ourselves for the Empire and to hell with the other people." said Major D. S. Murchison, Area Commander of the Home Guard, in an address on citizenship to the Christchurch Businessmen's Club yesterday. "Too often in the past he said, "we have had foreign doctrines explained in our schools and universities, to the detriment of our Empire. In answer to criticism of this we have been told that the young people must learn about all the doctrines, but they are not taught enough about our own. We could better revert to the old Three R's, coupled with My Country, right or wrong."
—"The Press."
Major Murchison had moderated his attitude toward the University when Canta interviewed him.
"For balanced minds, of course," he said, "there is no danger in the study of foreign doctrines. It is only when they affect unbalanced minds which are liable to be swept away by them that they become dangerous." In other words, we must touch books expounding un-British doctrines only if we are so irrevocably prejudiced and pig-headed that we will regard them as nothing more than agreeable curiosities.
Listen to Harold Laski, on a similar situation in Nazi Germany—"[unclear: Much] of the socialist and democratic literature of the past is now inaccessible to readers except by permission."
People with balanced minds were those who have been brought up on loyalty, and who realise that it was practical to stick up for one's country and present a united front to the rest of the world. We don't want so much art taugnt in our schools, Major Murchison affirmed; our children must be given a practical education from a national point of view.
"Therefore give the children 'My country right or wrong' for all you are worth." That would do them no harm and would build their characters. Character was the most important thing in life, and men of good character and balanced minds would almost inevitably cling to the doctrines taught them in their cradle days.