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2.

a text, and it shall be from the Book of Ecclesiasticus, "The wisdom
of the learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure; and he that hath
little business shall become wise." After the fashion of the old type
of Scottish minister, I would add that I am especially concerned with the
first clause of the verse, for I do not think the second clause is equally
sound: "Wisdom cometh by opportunity of leisure."

This is an immense subject, and I want to limit myself to one
practical aspect of it. There are many aspects. For example, there is
the sociological and economic side. We are all agreed that one of the
chief objects of education is to enrich our leisure, and that the policy
of shorter hours of work carries with it the obligation to enable the
worker to employ his spare time worthily. Today we are witnessing the
triumph of the machine, through which the monotonous, exacting manual
toil of the past is to a large extent done away with. A mechanised world
means, in the long run, a very drastic reconstruction of industry, under
which labour nay be rationed with fewer working hours, and the enforced
leisure thus created will have to be filled up with new employments and
new interests. There are some - and I strongly sympathise with them -
who dream of a world where a man will have comparatively few hours of
regular work, and the rest of the day he will be craftsman or farmer,
producing the necessaries, and some of the luxuries, of his life. The
machine may end by playing the part which slave labour played in the old
Greek world, and be the basis of a richer and more civilised life for all.

Then there is the cultural side of leisure. If we are to live
a full and worthy life we cannot live only for our professions. We are
human beings as well as doctors, accountants, lawyers and engineers, and