BEAUTY SULLIED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 16, 20 January 1933, Page 9

BEAUTY SULLIED.

ENGLISH LITERATURE. methods of teachers. PROFESSOR'S STRONG CRITICISM. "I impeach the grammarians of the schools for destroying the appreciation of literature," said Professor W. A. Osborne, dean of the faculty of medicine of Melbourne University, to the Australian Education Conference last week The beauty of a great literature had been sullied, and Its sweetness poisoned, by the methods of instructions, lie declared. "We see this every day. A play of Shakespeare is presented, and an examination is held, and, in 99 cases out of 100, the children thus afflicted acquire an abiding aversion to this drama, and sometimes to its great author. This is because a work of art has been put to a use to which no work of art should ever be applied." Professor Oeborne said there was need for better equipment where science was taught in girls' schools. ''The spectacle of a girls' school appealing for funds to build a chapel when its laboratories are primitive or non-existent excites my resentment," he said. In btate schools, with co-education, girls_ have _a better chance of intellectual training in all subjects than in those private organisations where deportment, accent and savoir faire are emphasised.

Distrust of Occult. "Let us hear the end of this silly criticism that a school, by cultivating science, is renouncing the spiritual in favour of the utilitarian," he added. "Boys and girls, introduced at schools to the scientific habit of thought, will develop a confidencc in their powers of reasoning which they can apply *o the problems of work and citizenship. "They will acquire a healthy distrust of the occult and will be competent to direct salutary criticism against politics and politicians. "Abandon Art"—

"If an appreciation of the beautiful is not revealed in modern life, it is due to certain shortcomings in our artistic and musical education," said the Assistant Under-Secretary for Education in New South Wales, Mr. A. W. Hicks, in an address oil "Art and Music."

"In this State we have a National Art Gallery, but its influence is limited. We have a Conservatorium of Music, functioning successfully, but housed in a building once used as stables for Government House. The nearest approach to a National Art School is the Technical College Art School, housed in a deserted gaol. "On many of our educational institutions, the sign might well be written: 'Be prepared to abandon art and music, all ye who enter here.' Even in Sydney University, the peal of the carillon is | the sole evidence that the apostles of culture deem music 'worth even a nod."