FRENCH CHARACTERISTICS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 23 May 1936, Page 8

FRENCH CHARACTERISTICS

INTELLECT AND TASTE “The genius of France” as it appeared to Englishmen was the subject of a broadcast from Paris by Dr. Cloudcsley Brereton. Dr. Brereton is the first British subject who has been invited to broadcast through French transmitters in this way. Dr. Brereton said the achievement of the French was, above all, through spiritual con-

quest of a great part of the world. He summed up the French turn of mind in this comparison: “If the Englishman prides himself on being a sportsman, the Frenchman prides himself on being a * artist.” The . French were, above all, individuals, intensely interested in general ideals —“conversation is the bieatli of life to them”—but equally tenacious of their home life and their individual stake in the community. This was nowhere truer than in their domestic life. English women, it had been said, studied how to catch their husbands; French women studied how to keep them. And they knew that “Feed the brute” was good advice. In the sphere of education Dr. Brereton noted the supremacy of general and abstract ideas. Unlike British schools the French trained for intellect and taste fiist and.only incidentally for character.