AT VIENNA

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 284, 27 August 1930, Page 5

AT VIENNA

N.Z. DELEGATES’ NEWS On her return to London from the conference of the International Council of Women held iu Vienna Miss H. K. Lovell-Smith (Christchurch), proxy for Mrs. C. A. Fraer, confirmed all that has previously been sent to New Zealand regarding the delightful and generous hospitality with which the delegates were received (says a Loudon correspondent). The subjects for discussion were public health, arts, suffrage and rights of citizenship laws and legal position of women, education, Press, trades and professions, peace and arbitration, finance, equal moral standard, emigration and immigration, child welfare, Ou the subject of Press, the general impression of all countries seemed to be that the public is demanding for the women’s pages something more than the mere record of fashion and social notes and recipes. In some of the countries the editors of daily papers wanted more of the solid news of women than they could get. Delegates were asked to remind the councils iu their respective countries to keep the doings of the National Council before the public. Miss Lovell-Smith made a useful summary of the views of the various standing committees. It runs: — Mention was made of a Popular Arts Exhibition to be held in Berne in 1934, and each country is asked to send contributions. One of the objects of this committee is to cultivate and keep alive national arts and crafts and music, and literature belonging to each individual country. Each country had. her own. Czecho-Slovakia reported that interest is stimulated by arranging festivals and in the keeping up of the national costumes, folk dances and customs. The libraries are well stocked with books on arts and crafts. ’ Italy encourages contacts between the nations. She is reviving private initiative among young workers aud also among the peasants. Decayed arts are being revived. . Suggestions were made that interest should be stimulated in the music, both choral and instrumental, of each country. Delegates were asked to take the suggestion back to their countries. /■ • . Seventeen countries were represented in the Institute for Intellectual Co-opera-tion in Geneva. The subject of the teaching of sex hygiene in the schools occupied a good deal of the time of this committee. It was agreed that a programme should be drawn up for training the mothers to teach their children. It was agreed that teachers should be trained in the colleges. * * ’Germany has'a definite course for mothers in the training colleges, and in Holland"the University Education Extension organises classes for the teachers. Each country was asked to collect information to report to the convener on the maladjusted child (a) not developed enough; (b) too advanced in her country; and to report on the methods adopted to deal with these children. Discussion took place as to whether special subjects supposed to be specially feminine, such as needs of future wife and mother, child welfare, household management, should be taught in girls schools. (Very few countries have university degrees in home science.) . . ■Delegates were divided in their opinion on this, as if these subjects were insisted on, other subjects, would have to be dropped and the girl would not be properly equipped for her future life in probably the economic world. There were changes coming. Women had shown they can do what men can do. Now the question is: “Do we want to do it. Or is there something better —some better method which we will develop.' These were only discussions. Nothing was carried. . The cinema was an interesting committee. Delegates from different countries brought different points of view, but all were agreed that the National Council of Women must see that good adult films are asked for. . They were urged to investigate the method of production and distribution. Members remarked that children brought up upon adult films have no interest in the purely educational film. It was necessary to find out what, the cinema was doing to minds and feelings. Was it giving false views of life-making flighty parents, restless children ? The National Council of Women must be ready to advise, to think of the nourishment of the mind, and create a demand for better films. , The effect of the talkies was discussed. The impression was that these reduced any artistic possibility. The mechanical side intruded, giving the. child a mechanical view of art. A study of the effect of films on delinquent children has been made by an expert, who considered that films are a predisposing cause. Children get a mental instability through viewing films designed for adult minds.