Hans Anderson and the New World

Maoriland Worker, Volume 12, Issue 295, 25 October 1922, Page 10

Hans Anderson and the New World

When the New World fit for little children to live in, the day of all our Socialist dreams, comes, how many names that are honoured to-day' will be honoured then?

Of one of them I feel certain, writes John Coley in the- "Labour Leader,"' and it is that of Hans Christian Andersen. He Avas a Dane by birth but he belongs to ths children of all countries and all times.

Some .time ago I happened to be in Odense, one of the few large industrial towns of Denmark. But it is famous as the birthplace of Hans An-

dersen. . The house in which he was born is a two-storied cottage at the end of a long, narrow street. It has been converted into a museum, and the rooms are literally packed with objects of interest which belonged at one time to the well-known author. a small charge is made for admission. In the company of two friends, one English an<3 the other Danish, I visited this museum and spent two hours of delight.

Without doubt Andersen was a master in his own art whom none have ever surpassed. His works have been translated into almost every known language. Children of all ages and climes, in all classes of society, have had their imagination stirred by his tales. What is the secret of his power? Why is. there the constant call fox- new editions of his work?

The answer is the old one —the teal of all poetry and of all scripture. His appeal is to universal experience. His words are the simple ones that lie at the roots of ail human speech. His symbols are the common possessions of the whole human family.

Andersen must have possessed to an extraordinary degree the faculty of entering- into, the "child mind," of understanding how the child personifies and endows with human attributes all things, whether animate or inanimate. Sympathy for the children of the world must have been one of his main characteristics. They came to him while he way alive, and children will come to his books in endless procession "While the world lasts. His was the power to

"Give to barrows, trays, and pans, Grace and glimmer of romance." And as I have said, he belongs to no one country,

A PADDLING POOL, IX BERLIN.

Some weeks after our visit to Andersen's birthplace, my friend and I were in Berlin. A German comrade who is in charge of a Welfare Settlement in the East End of that city was acting , us guide during our short stay. It wa? evening, and we had been taking a stroll hi one of the large parks in the East End, discussing all

manner of things as we walked along , . Suddenly our comrade said: "Here ie a sight that will gladden your hearts!"

We were making" our way out of tlie park and had come to a section that was thickly surrounded by trees. Another minute and we found ourselves within them and beside an oblong pond or artificial lake. A broad gravelled path raw round the water's edge; fountains were playing in its centre. But the unique joy of it was In the statuettes and sculptured groups thai stood at intervals on the water's eds«.

Each of them illustrated some character or scene from the great fairy tale writers, Hans Andersen chief among then). The statues stood on low pcde-'tti.ls, just high enough for children to see without, having to be lifted up in the arms o" their elders.

Scores o>if parents and guardians were there vv'ith hundreds of children, whose enrapLured. faces showed their keen doiUltt and appreciation of this artistic -of the stories with which they wore so familiar.

Often a3 I Lave walked through Parks where- dilapidated machine suns and liklcous tanks have been the cenii-cs for the children's plaj-", I liavf? recalled the beauty of that■ .Tool in Berlin, and wondered how lon.iy it will be before the creatiorr.* of Hans Andersen's poet's pen art viven in. L.ike fashiori to the cliildren of Britain.

The Northern Counties Weavers , Amalgamation iJritain, lias issued a manifesto nuking operatives t;o resist the colum .mfumfaaUtrcrs , proposal to interfere with, the 48-hour working week iii i.ho cotton" trade, An increase o.E iiuuvs would mean, the manifesto .states, a voturii to the miserable dayi! oj rising at 5 o'clock on winter m-oniings, to iramp through Yixin ami snow ro as to commence work at C o'clock, tend ten hourswork in almost r>. tvop'eal atmosphere in sai»mo'r for 400.000 operatives-

"MUTUAL AID," A FACTOR IN EVOLUTION. By Prince Kropotkin.

The present volume of this stimulating book is a new edition Toy the American firm of Alfred A- Knoff.

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The apologists of war. the enemies of progress, have for decades abused Darwin's terminology "struggle for existence-" as an excuse for the horrors of the battlefield and the tyranny of industrial slavery, not knowing, and perhaps caring less, that there is a .work in the English language which, interprets biological and social progress, not in terms of overbearing brute force and cunning, but in terms of mutual co-operation.

Almost twenty y.ears have passed since this book was first published, but its fundamental idea, e.g., that mutual aid represents in evolution a most Important progressive element, is now being recognised by students of sociology and biology.

Kropotkin discusses the importance and gives illustrations of mutual aid among various classes of animals, and closes with a consideration of the same factor in the evolution of Man. The period from the earliest clan per- ! iod of savage and half-savage masses, medieval cify-remiblies, down to tho present day, teems with interesting illustrations of the influence of mutual aid in creating the best features of modern civilisation. "It is not," says Kropotkin, "love to my neighbour— whom I do not know —which induces mc to seize a pail of water and rush toward his house when I see it on fire; it is a far wider, even though more vague feeling or instinct of . human solidarity and sociability which moves mc," And again: 'It is not love, and not even sympathy (understood in its proper sense) which induces a herd of ruminants or of horses to form a ring in order to resist an attack of wolves: not love which induces wolves to form a pack for hunting; not love which induces kittens to play, or a dozen or species of youug bird to spend their days together in autumn; and it i>3 neither love nor personal sympathy which induces many thousand fallow-deer -scattered over a territory as large as France 10 form in J separate, all marching - towarcss a I given spot, in order to cross there a j river. It is a feeling infinitely wider than love or personal sympathy—an instinct that has .slowly developed ! among animals a»>d tnon In the course '-of an extremely ion;.; & volution, and I which has taught aimals and men : alike the foree 1 they can borrow from the practice of mutual aid support, and--the joys ihey can find in social life."

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