TRAVELS ABROAD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23109, 6 August 1938, Page 26

TRAVELS ABROAD

ART AND LANGUAGES CULTURE IN SWEDEN NEW THEORY OF HOME LIFE Sweflen as a country highly developed in modern art, literature, architecture and all manner of artistic crafts was described yesterday by Mrs. Perc3 r Grainger, wife of the well-known Australian pianist and composer, who passed through Auckland by the Mariposa on a holiday visit to Australia. Born in Sweden Mrs. Grainger has travelled considerably*; in England, Europe and the United States. Even before her marriage and the travelling entailed by her husband's concert tours, Mrs. Grainger fulfilled a Lapland for-tune-teller's prophecy by travelling all over Europe as soon as she had finished school in Sweden.

Although she herself has no interest in nlusic apart . from her husband's work, Mrs. Grainger has two engrossing hobbies in art and languages. Although English, German and French were compulsory subjects in Swedish schools, Mrs. Grainger considered that no language could be learned properly

without direct contact with the country to which it was native and its people. She herself spent a year in Germany .and a year in Pans studying languages and carrying on her work as an art student until the outbreak of the war brought about her return to Sweden.

It had been Mrs. Grainger's experience that although the English were not natural linguists, they usually succeeded with a foreign language when its knowledge became really necessary. As a rule English people spoke Swedish much better than the Germans or the French whose intonation was scaled differently.

At present Mrs. Grainger has a hofne in New York and a cottage in Sussex, England. 1 She considered, however, that in the modern life of to-day homes were unnecessary.

"There is really no need for a kitchen to be part of a home or for women to spend hours cooking meals in little pots and cleaning up when there is so much of interest to do. Domestics are scarce and time is short, and houses expensive.

"We should all live in a modern version of a barracks with each family having its own bedrooms, bathroom and lounge and a huge communal kitchen where one staff did all the cooking and cleaning. There could be communal and private dining rooms and nurseries for the children. All the time thus saved by women could then be devoted to a cultural and intellectual life."