LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 72, 24 March 1923, Page 23

LITERARY.

H «irt in AnXmli.-i." o.lited by Sydney 1 nJ Smith and I--" Gilbert, of which & Liber three, third series, is now to i . su . add* to its pictorial represcnta--1 ?C of the best that art in the Cumi Bonwealth has to offer, literary and 4 frDoTflP hicill compositions that may I mll°d aim rank with anything of the I .jme class produ'-cl in hurope or I imer ica - -* m 0"? ti.e most notable of H the pictorial contents i= a reproduction W of the oil painting by W. B. Mclnnes, 1 which was awarded the Archibald ?! Bequest, of £400 fnr t_lu best portrait •■'m liv a resident Australian. Two other I portraits that wore enterol in competition ior the same prize shew that in tiiis Iranch of art Australia is not backward, even if no artist has establi.-hed j claim to be piftced in the front rank. I merited compliment is paid to Mr. G. IV. Lambert, A.R.A., the second Australasian to be elected as an Associate of the Royal Academy, by a reproduction o i a eelf portrait, together with four pencil drawing*, all excellent examples of Mr. Lambert's work in portraiture. Other Australian artiste whose work is worthily represented in this number are Hans Heyson. Norman Lindsay, Eliott Gruner and Percy Leason. The literary contents include a canzonet written by Michael Anc;elo Pmonarrote, sculptor of Florence, when he found himself grown ' old; translated by Christopher Brennan, iad some admirable examples of black letter and eighteenth century printing. The publishers ye Art in Australia, Ltd., 24, Bond Street, Sydney. Tha Right Rev. Arthur C. Headlam, Bishop of Gloucester, in a series ot ; scholarly books, published by Mr. John Murray, has given an exposition of the position of the Christian Church in relation to various problems which have tiercised men's minds in recent • years. His latest work "The Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ," is devoted to a discussion of the general credibility of the traditional account of the life and work of Christ. He direct: his attention mainly to that school of criticism which maintains that, although mc may accept as certain the fact that Jeans of Nazareth was a real person and the founder of the Christian religion, md may accept also some portion of That is narrated about him, yet we must recognise that the greater part of the contents of the Gospel tells us not what He taught, but what the Christian Church which grew up after His death thought. Dr. Headlam begins by a critical study of the documents from which our knowledge is obtained, and ■hows how. accepting all the assured results of criticism, it remains that the great body ot material contained in the Synoptic Gospels mu«t represent the teaching about Christ as it w.is taught by the earliest generation ot Christians. He then examines the historical circumstances of the time and the conditions in Galilee under which 4 . our Lord lived and taught, and shows show the teaching, particularly of the f--SynopUc Gospels, reflects just those and concludes that the lliai torical conception of the claims ana .message of Jesus must be authentic. The things that have interested 3lr. Arnold Bennett, as shewn in the second series which Messrs. Chatto and Win- ! ,ins publish, are numerous and varied. § iiey- do not include a chamber concert. • jfihough ho devotes six pages to the j ifecription of one, because he tells us " Jhat he was intolerably holed thereat, : ,md left before the end. became other- : 'Trjse he would have begun to recite • Dante's "Purgatorio"' aloud. He wen". I from the concert to the Palladium music I lull, and was delighted with Klla Shields' ■ , celebrated song "Burlington Bertie' , : . ifjfoo rose at eight-thirty)—well, many men many .tastes, and who shall say . them nay! There ere various other I things of which Mr. Bennett disapproves j —in fact, ]\e seems to regard most things •- Trith. lit tJe favour. The average I theatrical manager is remarkable, chiefly j for his "enormous anil contented ignorance of literature and of the arts in • general," and "not one manager in ten \ is att«d to eboose a play." Playrights : and dramatic critics are also, on the ■whole, a poor lot. However, Mr. ': Bennett is always readable, and he j knows a good many things very well, .' so that when he discourses on dancing, • on feminine attire, how pirls rejrard I marriage, the present state of games and j other matters which interest the average J man a« much as they have done Mr. Bennett, we read what he has to say, if we do not exactly accept his utteri ances as embodying the wisdom of a • twentieth century Solomon. "The Eden Tree,' , by Anthony Carlyle I (Hills and Boon), is the t=tory of a - Beautiful woman who. having maVried a man of moderate wealth with the pros- ■ pect of inheriting a title from a bachej lor uncle is disappointed through the uncle marrying and begetting a son. Callous, worldly and ambitious, she sets herself deliberately to entancle a young J peer, the intimate friend of her hus- ■ 'hand, with the object of securing a • divorce and inducing the carl, from a ; ttnse of honour, to marry her. £he is i mccessful up to a point but her plans go wrong, and thera is a salutary ! retribution. : Sme very readable short stories by • C. E. Montague, collected under the title : fiery Particles," and published by and "Whidus. are described as tales of arrant lovers of living, mighty jronters of lions or shadows, rapt ama- . teurs of shady adventure or profitless • The description is not inapt. Tliey Mc really good yarne. and touch life as « sometimes found in England and •trance during the war. Ireland and . Australia have contributed their "par- | nclea," which are more humorous than \7' c P romise ot ' entertainment, : WJich the- publisher holds out will cerI tainly not. in this case, lead to "disen- • ehaatment," a theme on which the - author eloquently discoursed in an ;. fcu-lier book. ; The "London"' Magazine 'March) now ,' ° tand, n ith otlicr monthly magazines, : from the publishers. Messrs' Gordon and ■ <™teh, contain- stories by Gilbert FrankEJ S. Hu S h Walpole, and other popular ; Also a series of illustrations a colour of London's great waterway. ™ Thames. The special feature of : "Storyteller" is a inng novel by ; «uli? Gibb*. entitled "The Beggar of Berlin." "The World's Work" magazine ; «ntaina an article by Darrell Figgi=. fiecolections of th- lVi-li Wa ." giving « account of the becinnin: of the Free _ State army, and t'.e pope mo. t artive'v .engaged in its creation. T. > rebrua y , antnber of "My Magazine' , has artitves ," On Japanese art. the origin of tie leanh, Joan of Arc, and other interesting •übjects. The January ijuue of "PictnreBoer" contains 6ome well illustrated »rticles deaUng with people and events IS m tha movie world.

Tn his book "How to Play Billiards' 'Methuen), Tom Newman gives explici instructions, illustrated by four plate *;:<! fifty diagrams, for the guidance o beginners and the assistance of amateur who have already attained some pro ficiem-y in the game. His style as : mentor is lucid and attractive. H< deals with such topics as the prope method of swinging the cue, angles half-ball and other contacts, "side, "top. -, "wrew," and "drag." and finall brings nis lessons into practicable work' ing in an exposition of the game unde the title "\ou and I Play Billiards." ORIGIN OF FSEEMASONRT. The association of Free Masonry -wit] the building of Solomon's temple is i widely accepted tradition, and Mi Bernard H. t?prin«ett, in his bool ■ .->eeret Sects of Syria and Lebanon (Georg-e Allen and Unwin) has collectei a store of historical data which throw a good deal of light upon the origin o Masonic ceremonial and rites. He claim; from a study of ancient records, tha "much of what we now look upo almost entirely as Freemasonry has bee practiced as part and parcel of the re ligions of the Middle East for man thousands of years. But it ia frequentl and scornfully rejected by the averag Masonic student, and this eeems to i>« token of unwillingness to credit Masonr with au existence of more than two o three hundred years at the most. It i painful to those who, like myself, take justifiable pride in the antiquity c Masonry, far exceeding that of an, other religion in the world known t mankind, to lear it so frequently cor demned as purely legendary. I hay attempted to bring together, from very large number of sources, reliab] evidence as to the prevalence amonge the inhabitants, ancient and modern, c Syria and the mountains of Lebano in particular, of various ceremonii rites, manners and customs. These, wit the accompanying initiations, sign passwords and grips, together with tli allegorical and symbolical language en ployed, seem to mc to point to a extremely remote origin. ,, Mr. Springe) lis of opinion the Templars wh I took part in the Crusades found the I own Masonic knowledge strengthene I considerably by what they came 1 touch with-in the East: '"Thus, on thei return *.o their native land a natun result would be some development of th extremely ancient ritual of the Druid remnants of that Stellar cult whic ; seem.* to be the true source of Fre< j masonry, which extended by the ii I fluenciug visits of Phoenician merchant I had been carefully preserved and addc to by the loving" care of Alfred an Athelstan, as proved by reliable doci ments in the Bodleian Library and tli British Museum." In supporting thes conclusions, *.he author gives the resu of very exhaustive researches an submits" a weighty mass of evidence. NATIONAL EDUCATION. A NINETEENTH CENTURY APOSTLI I The "Life and Work of Sir James Kay Shuttleworth," by Frank Smith. Lecture on Education, I'niversity College. Abel vstwvth (John Murray) reminds us of th resistance which was offered from niajr j quarters to national education. Jame ' Phillips Kay, born at Rochdale in 180-i was nurtured in an atmosphere of Non conformist religious zeal. At the age o fifteen he became a Sunday schoo teacher, and he maintained, in later life that "the Sunday school was roo from which sprang our system of da; schools. The force "which makes religiou training the chief aim of the elementar; day school was derived from this root the congregational organisation of ou school system has the same origin." It was as a doctor that Kay first mad< his mark. After a brilliant career a Edinburgh University he became a dis pensrng assistant there, and thus cam' into close touch with the poor. In IS2I he passed to Manchester, and there founi conditions even more shocking than ii Edinburgh. "The absence of proper wale supply and of systematic sewerage con tinuaily spread typhoid fever. The con dition of the houses and the streets am the want of proper conveniences promote* the diffusion of zymotic diseases, l>, which a larjre portion of the infant popu lation perished. The work of mothers o families in the mill 3, and the imperfec nursing of children in their absence, com bined with these previously describe) causes, destroyed one-half of the childrei before they wore live years of age." The epidemic of cholera in 1532, whicl in Manchester, as in other manufactiir ing towns of Ensland, caused a morta-lit; as terrible as that recorded of the blaci plagues of the Middle Ages, aroused pub lie opinion to the necessity for reform and Dr. Kay became prominent in movr ments in that direction. In a pamphlc on "The Moral and Physical Conditioi of the Working Classes Employed in thi Cotton Manufacture in Manchester," hi urged that the only remedy was pre ventire medicine, that is to say socia reforms, including a substantial measuri of education for the poor. His worl attracted the attention of the Govern ment and he was appointed Assistan Poor Law Commmissioner, in charge o Norfolk and Suffolk, in which capacity hi advocated the education of children whi found their way into workhouses, believing that education would end hereditary pauperism. It was in connection with thi pauper schools then established that thi system of pupil teachers sprang into ex istence, and out of that emerged th' training colleges for teachers, to the crea tion of which Dr. Kay directed his atten tion. In March, 1830. Lord Landsdowni wrote to Kay announcing the intentioi to found an Education Department con sisting of a Committee of Council, am asking what the first step should be. Ka; replied that a Normal Training Coileg was the first need. Shortly afterward Kay was offered and accepted the secre taryship of the new Department of State We read in this biography the stor* of Church antagonism to voluntar" schools, the obstacle to education nhici existed in'the system of child factor; labour, and the suspicion which ever movement for improving the condition o the working classes encountered. Bitte denominational attacks were made on th' work of the Committee of Council, am effective State interference ill the gen eral field of education was only aehieve< with the introduction of Mr. W. E Forster's Education Act of 1870, after : struggle of thirty years: it wa3 eight; years before the right of every child t< education was secured by law an< abysmal ignorance was banished froi tire land. Apart frr-T the side-light which thi biography • ruvs upon educational am social ref.-irn: ml Great Britain, we obtaii pHirpsp? r ' many notable public men am women in 'lie political, scientific, am literary world of Sir James Kay's gen eration. He was on terms of persona friendship with Mrs. Gaskill, Charlotti Bronte, Harriet Martinean and other in teresting people, and the incidenta references to them whicfc occur in th( course of the narrative are interesting.