Essay On Safety First..
The history of the progress of civilisation is the story of the achievements of those who put adventure before safety. The primitive men who dared to leave the safety' of their native valley and cross high mountains in search of a new land were the pioneers of discovery. Those who ventured in home-made boats across the sea were even bolder. When we seek to discovery what urged them to take such important steps, we find that there was always some discontent with their conditions which made them feel that the risk of danger. was better than passive acceptance of a life that was far from satisfying.
There are countless example in history of how men have been urged by dissatisfaction to make some great discovery which has been of the utmost value to the human race. It was a small group of men and women in sixteenth and seventeenth century England who found the interference of authority with their religious beliefs so intolerable that they were willing to set out for the New World -- the recently discovered America, to found a new home. Safety was the last thing these brave people could expect in their venture.
In our present century. great discoveries in Science have been made by people who had no thought for their own safety, but were eager to find a way to help their fellow creatures. The work of Madame Curie is an outstanding example. Her life story shows how little she valued her personal safety; her work brought her a constant succession of risks to health, wealth, and life itself, but as a result of her discoveries, hundreds of sufferers from the dreadful disease of cancer have received relief or cure.
The idea of Safety First, or Security, has been taken by some political leaders in modern times as an idea of national life, It is considered that the people of a nation need to feel safe, to know that there will always be food, shelter, clothes, education, holidays and entertainments whatever happens. Those who have not the brains, energy. or initiatiNe to work for these things for themselves must have them provided by other people.
A general acceptance of this principle would have a most stultifying effect on progress. If all our people preferred the safe and familiar life of some regular, humdrum occuption and began to calculate their retirement pensions before they were twenty. there would be no one to lead the world to new discoveries. We should glorify the income-tax collector rather than the discoverer of the South Pole or the climbers of Everest!
Let us then keep "Safety First" in its proper place in the Highway Code. But it does not mean that for our safety, are endanger the lives of the other people. We must be considerate. All of his have the same importance on this planet.
As a traffic slogan, "Safety First" may be eminently suitable but as a motto for life, either of a nation or an individual, it would be as deadening as a permanently acting brake. All the great deeds of history have been achieved by people who were not thinking of safety. but had been inspire to take risks by some great endeavour towards which they were working.
The history of the progress of civilisation is the story of the achievements of those who put adventure before safety. The primitive men who dared to leave the safety' of their native valley and cross high mountains in search of a new land were the pioneers of discovery. Those who ventured in home-made boats across the sea were even bolder. When we seek to discovery what urged them to take such important steps, we find that there was always some discontent with their conditions which made them feel that the risk of danger. was better than passive acceptance of a life that was far from satisfying.
There are countless example in history of how men have been urged by dissatisfaction to make some great discovery which has been of the utmost value to the human race. It was a small group of men and women in sixteenth and seventeenth century England who found the interference of authority with their religious beliefs so intolerable that they were willing to set out for the New World -- the recently discovered America, to found a new home. Safety was the last thing these brave people could expect in their venture.
In our present century. great discoveries in Science have been made by people who had no thought for their own safety, but were eager to find a way to help their fellow creatures. The work of Madame Curie is an outstanding example. Her life story shows how little she valued her personal safety; her work brought her a constant succession of risks to health, wealth, and life itself, but as a result of her discoveries, hundreds of sufferers from the dreadful disease of cancer have received relief or cure.
The idea of Safety First, or Security, has been taken by some political leaders in modern times as an idea of national life, It is considered that the people of a nation need to feel safe, to know that there will always be food, shelter, clothes, education, holidays and entertainments whatever happens. Those who have not the brains, energy. or initiatiNe to work for these things for themselves must have them provided by other people.
A general acceptance of this principle would have a most stultifying effect on progress. If all our people preferred the safe and familiar life of some regular, humdrum occuption and began to calculate their retirement pensions before they were twenty. there would be no one to lead the world to new discoveries. We should glorify the income-tax collector rather than the discoverer of the South Pole or the climbers of Everest!
Let us then keep "Safety First" in its proper place in the Highway Code. But it does not mean that for our safety, are endanger the lives of the other people. We must be considerate. All of his have the same importance on this planet.
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