THE RYHTHM OF EXISTENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14934, 6 March 1912, Page 10

THE RYHTHM OF EXISTENCE.

Some very interesting tilings on rhythm and music in life were said by Dr. Arthur Somervell to the Conference •on Mttoical Education. Dr. Somervell said that "about the time of Elizabeth -we wore the most musical nation in Europe, and from that proud position we had descended with a . rush, owing to the Puritan Revolution, to a state" of musical imbecility. That revolution, which did so much for the moral life of the nation, succeeded in completely suppressing all forms of self-expression through art, with the sole exception of literature. .> . ."An officer commanding at one of our foreign stations told him how strongly he felt that all boys should learn music, because he thought there was nothing like a taste for music for, keeping young men in touch with the right kind of women. A movement "which he regarded as of the greatest possible importance was that connected with the revival of traditional song and dance. V..;;.. "What he 'hoped and longed to see or hoped "that their children would see, as the outcome of their sometimes rather wearisome labours, was an England responsive again, as she once was, to the beauty of the rhythm • of national existence, when we should not only do beautiful and splendid things, but do them in a beautiful way and be aware of the beauty, of . them, as were the great Elizabethans ; when' slum dwellings, whether ! for the. rich or for the poor, would be swept away, because both rich and poor, •wholly apart from economic considerations, realised them to be intolerable anachronisms. On every there was evidence of a wakihg-up." ;