NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22933, 11 January 1938, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

BIOGRAPHY - The defects of bad biographies are due to a tendency to look down to or up at the figures of the past, said Mr. Philip Guedalla in a recent address. They should be viewed with level e.yes, and it is an error to patronise the past like a petrol advertisement with its "gasoline giggles." The duty of the biographer is to be more interested in his subject than in himself, which accounts for the modesty of biographers as a class. STUDY OF LAW Law was often regarded as a dismal subject to study, second only to economics, but there was surely something wrong about that prejudice, said Lord Macmillan at the opening of new buildings for the University of London. The study of law was pre-emi-nently a social service, though the popular idea seemed to be that it was only concerned with matrimonial affairs. Even the newspapers failed to recognise humanistic elements. The strife and trouble in the world, in Governments, and even in universities, had to be settled on some basis of law. In his view no study could be more interesting, more fascinating and more romantic. He would like to see law taught, not only in universities, but in simple fashion in the schools. Every citizen was entitled to some guidance on how to regulate life. THE SCHOOL SYSTEM "For 20 years the school world has gone through a most disturbing phase —Hadow reorganisation, slum clearance, constant changes of population, nn everlasting scrutiny of its anatomy and often the surgeon's knife," said Mr. D. O. Lester Srfiith, director of education for Manchester. "During the next 20 years may we not hope that the school system will bo permitted to enjoy rest and refreshment; that teachers and administrators alike will concentrate on the heart, mind and spirit of education? All sorts of important problems demand the attention which only a respite from the tramp of organisation and reorganisation will make possible. The cult of simplicity has, so far, been resisted by our educational system. Light and air, line and perspective have captured our school architecture. Yet our school organisation still swelters in its elaborate Gothic."

TROUBLED EUROPE "I do not believe that either Germany or Italy wants to risk a really big European war," said Sir Arthur Willert, formerly head of the News Department and Press Officer at the Foreign Office.addressing a Liberal conference at Brighton. "Fear is one of the things that has caused this dangerous line-up in Europe like that of 1914. but fear is also a powerful deterrent of war. To my idea the danger will come in a few years' time, when rearmament is over and when the economic depression which everyone considers to be inevitable unless we can get away from economic nationalism takes place. Then will be the moment when Herr Hitler and perhaps others may get out their ploughshares and try to beat them into swords. But that should not be for three, four or five years. We have that long in which to try to put things right." Sir Arthur said there was evidence that Italian foreign policy to-day was largely actuated by mistrust of Mr. Eden. "The argument which you get all over Italy is that Mr. Eden was given by Signer Mussolini the biggest black eye that any Foreign Minister of Great Britain has ever been given when Mussolini took Addis Ababa, that Mr. Eden is a very vengeful type, and that the real reason we are rearming is to give him his opportunity of giving Mussolini two black eyes." He declared that economic nationalism and not the struggle between Fascism and Communism was the real threat to the peace of Europe. Referring to "all that lies behind the project for an Anglo-American trade treaty," Sir Arthur said: "Germany might feel she would like to come into this arrangement, and if that happens we would be able to make our terms to Germany. Democracy may be going to get its final chance in these treaties."

HEROISM OF SERVICE Dealing with the nature of the modern revolt against Christian morality, Dr. Matthews, Dean of St. Paul's, said that to-day it was denied that the Christian way of living was really gojd, and in Britain this was a recent development. The attacks on religion differed in a remarkable manner from those at the end of the Victorian era. The older agnostics denied doctrines, but scarcely questioned the supremacy of the Christian ideal of life. To-day it was said that the Christian ethic was not only impracticable, but was based on disastrous error. The idea of the exceptional individual, the hero who made laws for himself and other people, too, was a potent one at the present time. Dictators were not only feared, they were admired. The ideal of the heroic life had its influence, and doubtless owed some of its vogue to Nietzsche. It. was not wholly evil. We should all be better if we lived more heroically, and were not always aiming at comfort and security. If the hero, however, wa-j to bo of tho Nietzsche type, we must prepare our armour and get ready our funk-holes. There was another hero, he submitted, who willed not only to redeem a people but all people. His heroism led not to a throne in this world but to the Cross. Which kind of heroism should we emulate, the heroism of power or the heroism of service? In that question was summed up the problem of the future of the world. Speaking of Communism and of all those who would repudiate tho ideal of the Kingdom of God and place their hopes in some future Kingdom of Man, the Dean said that it had been pointed out that Communism had a strange resmblance to primitive Christianity. It looked for salvation to He revealed, though not from heaver*. It judged all things by the light of the kingdom to come, though not the Kingdom of . God. It. too, was a hope of the poor and oppressed. For these reasons it was Christianity's most dangerous enemy. Itwould teach that all the visions of Christianity were less than worthless unless they were a means toward coming to a secular Utopia. The Christian thinker had not always been a popular figure in the Church, but those who had eyes to see must recognise to-day that the Christian thinker had an indispensable vocation, Christanity would prevail only if it could meet its rivals on the plane of discussion withsrlearness ana with, confidence..