CULTURE IN SCHOOLS

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 85, 7 October 1936, Page 5

CULTURE IN SCHOOLS

MUSIC AND DRAMA

A TWO NIGHTS' FESTIVAL;

(Contributed by the Wellington Head-

masters' Association.)

An adult has been defined as a .petson who has stopped growing except in the middle. And many of us feel that the cynicism contains an unpleasant deal of truth. Maybe it's our owa fault tli at we fail to reach out towards wider interests as the years pass us by, and that we live mentally in narrow thoroughfares—:too often marked way traffic."

Or can some'of the faultt> be traced to early training? If it can, then the demand is urgent that the boys' and girls of 1936 should have their feet! set in wider and more attractive paths. The 128-hour week is theirs already— 128 toil-free hours that leave a-wide margin of leisure when the demands of sleep and the routine of daily < life have been met.

The problem—one to which recent references have been made by Ministers of the Crown, by the Pj?ess,'and from the pulpit—is to ensure that these recreation periods become really re-' creational and not. leaden-footed hours of boredom. The shortened working week will prove a doubtful blessing if it means nothing more than.the burning of more and stillmore petrol, the barracking at ever-multiplying sporting events, or the achievement of a yet more Ethiopian degree, of sun-tan,-.

A,revolt from the monotony of mechanised labour has produced the need and the opportunity/for1 the; extension of work-free hours. .But it is felt that mechanised and commercialised recreation forms a danger hardly less immediate. National well-being will follow when our recreation is a real development of personality; when the players far outnumber the spectators; when*we have learnt that the keenest, enjoyment of music or drama lies''with'fh« performers and not with the audience; when every man and woman in the community can experience the supreme joy of creative craftsmanship. '

The happy individual is the one who can say, "This was- my own work," whether his tool be the violin-bow or the gardener's spade, whether he uses a camera or builds •■ a"' canoe,, whether his product be a one-act play or a "model of the Awatea.'

The festival of the Wellington Public Schools, being held in-the Town Hall this evening and tomorrow at 7.45 p.m., should serve to show something of what is being attempted by, way 'of fitting our boys and girls for these new opportunities. School music has developed much through the institutipn of the school choir. Pioneered by South. Wellington,, Lyall . Bay,'. Northland, and Johnsonville ■ schools, tha plan of grouping together pupils'-with special interest in, and ability lfor, singing has now-spread to many of the schools, and the choral items' to Zbe given in the Town Hall should prova that the ctiy's musical societies, will not in future lack competent recruits.

.No recent development has been more striking than the growth ,in the writing and performance, of amateur drama, and the schools, in the face of obvious difficulties of space and equipment, are increasingly using dramatic expression to form an interpretatiya medium for school studies.. Several city schools are offering short plays as their quota towards the festival.

Verse-speaking choirs are doing much to promote the enjoyment -and'" ;tr?ie understanding» of poetry. Rhythmic beauty is often obscured-by reading from the printed page, and the rhythm is, in the opinion of the disciples of Drinkwater, the crowning glory of poetry

For the father of music istpoe.try; The father; of poetry is rhythm:/1

And the Father of rhythm is God. The work done by Cecil Sharp in the "collecting and publishing of .the old English folk-dances has preserved a heritage of natural, joyous art as priceless in its sphere as the work of the folk-song collectors. Both .folksong and folk dance arose directly from the peasantry; many, like' thp "Helston Furry" dance (made famou3 as the Cornish floral dance), " were native to some almost forgotten. village. By their freedom of movement, unconventionally, and perfection pt rhythm these dances have won' wjde favour among teachers and _ pupils alike. . '

~ While folk-dances;;are,-by several schools, others will' shoiW more formal- physical exercises aridi figure marching. The, two festival performances are to be. presided bverAby. the Mayor of Welling^iri :the: chairman, of the Wellington: Education Board respectively..;..- :,.; " ; '■.'.'''<■.

Any profits will be donated,toith» Otaki Children's Health Camp. ; ' ;