WORKERS’ EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18542, 1 May 1922, Page 6

WORKERS’ EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION

PUBLIC LECTURES. LITERATURE AND LIFE. A series of public lectures under the auspices of the Workers’ Educational Association was commenced on night in the Upper Oliver Hall, Otago University, Miss M. H. M. King, the Principal of the Girls’ High School, holding a crowded audience entranced for nearly an hour and ahalf on the subject “Literature and Life: The Heritage of the English Classics.” Mr W. Eudey, who presided in the absence of Mr J. O. Stephens, stated that the course had been organised in order that the members of the various classes of the association might,come to know one another better and that means of recreation might be provided giving a change from the difficult studies of the week, recreation that, still .might contain in itself matter of real benefit and culture to all concerned. The general public would be most welcome, and it was hoped that many who did not attend the association’s classes wohld accept an invitation to be present at some of the ordinary lectures. Ho felt sure that if they did so it would lead to some of them joining the classes permanently. He mentioned incidentally that Miss King had taken great interest in the W.E.A. at Invercargill, conducting an English class for a number of years. Miss King opened with a general review of the common attitude of students to the classics, this being summed up in the expression of one, who termed Paradise Lost os “swat stuff.’’ Sho mentioned the view of Arnold, Bennett that great literature was appreciated only by a few. but strongly dissented, holding rather that there was a much wider interest taken in the classics than many supposed. She had known of classes becoming so absorbed in the study of an English classic as. to forget to ring the bell. Literature was the expression of life, and in its highest form an expression of life at its best. This being so she was much cheated in her estimate if it did not prove of interest to most people The saying that man could not live by bread alono was much older than the 20th century, but people were becoming more vividly conscious of the fact. The close relation between literature and human progress was dwelt much upon, and to bring the matter home Miss King dealt particularly with three great periods of English literature, those which gave us Tennyson and Browning, Shakespeare. Milton, and the authorised version of 'the English Bible. Over and over again the lecturer found the fullest expression of her thought in quotations from the authors with whom she was dealing and afterwards asked what we were to do with our great heritage of the English classics. Was it to remain “swat stuff,” and an intellectual luxury to be appreciated only by the few? We were to-day enormously intent, upon education, and our attention was directed consciously and universally towards the achievement of something greater in human brotherhood, higher in human enlightenment, than had ever been acliieved before. We were convinced that to this achievement education was the key. But it would not bo the education that had obtained in the post. They were not going to aim ,at turning people into encyclopedias or dictionaries. They were going to aim at enabling people to live more keenly, widely, higher than they had lived before The greatest instrument and handiest tool for this purpose was the classics. In literature lay the means whereby people could bo brought into living contact with the highest and best the race had produced. Literature, properly used, would enable people to work and to enjoy as they never Had worked and enjoyed before. If this end was to. be achieved, however, it would be necessary to proceed on very different lines from those followed in the past. The great thing was living contact of spirit with spirit. Educational results were not to b© measured by percentages in examinations. Miss King enforced the principle that in literature was to be found the expression of the highest achievement of man, and in the classics spirit could meet, with spirit, communing in the highest planes, each generation reaping a harvest from those that went before and leading ever forward to higher achievement in the generations to come. A hearty yote of thanks was accorded to the lecturer. Chief Inspector Fleming, in moving this, referred to the neglect of literature by the local W.E.A. in the past and expressed the hope that Miss King’s lecture would bear fruit. He also said that the lecture augured well for the course, but those following Miss King would have to look to their *!atirels.