IN MEMORIAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18820, 24 March 1923, Page 6

IN MEMORIAL

From lime to time bold suggestions are offered respecting the desirability of establishing the open-air school in Xew Zealand. The appeal is not always compelling. There are occasions upon which tho salubrity oi our ■ climate is such as positively to make one shudder, and enough to make any selfrespecting member cf a school committee resort to strong language. Everybody rejoices in the beneficence of sunshine, but when in the summer months the sun

scarcely puts in an appearance for weeks on end exhortations respecting that beneficence make rather exasperating reading. The doctors are, however, inexorable in their exposition of general principles of health, even if all do not manifest an antipathy to schools with walls and roofs; and reiteration sometimes accomplishes wonders. “Sunlight and Childhood” was the subject of a recent address to the King .Alfred School Society by the indefatigable Dr C. W. Saleeby, who illustrated by pictures on a screen the remarkable cures which have resulted from the exposure of the skins of children to sunlight. While the existence of centres for treatment by sunlight in the Alps is fairly widelyknown, Dr Saleeby’s audience- was rather astonished, it may well be believed, to be shown pictures of boys skating with no other clothing than loin-cloths and boots, or attending open-air schools in the snow when similarly attired. The lecturer dispelled the idea- that the sun’s rays exercised curative powers only at high altitudes. Rickets and tuberculosis he classed among the “diseases of darkness,” and he condemned their treatment in sunless wards of hospitals and sanatoria. Science, he said, had just found out that there was direct correspondence between the incidence of sunlight upon the skin and the composition of the blood. It had been found that certain fabrics allowed the rays to pacs, and bare legs and arms or thin, stockings helped to improve and maintain health : even in the Alps a pigmentation of the skin was set up and children kepi as warm as toast.

The place cf the cinema as a factor in education was the subject of interesting discussion at th© recent Conference of Educational Associations in London. While not divulging the contents of the report of the Research Committed of the Cinema Commission prior to its presentation to the National Council, the Board of Education, and the Carnegie Trustees, Dr Kiramins mentioned that the results were highly favourable to the cinema as an instrument of education. The evidence of witnesses, he said, had- been practically unanimous as to the value of the cinema for the purpose of Nature study and for geography by means of travel films. In regard to other subjects, there had been a great diversity of opinion. The educational film had been severely handicapped by the imperative need of performing a double function. The treatment of the subject in a manner such, as would be acceptable to a non-scientific audience frequently necessitated the elimination of the very elements which would be of the greatest interest to the student. The real educational film, declared Dr Kimmins, had yet to be produced. When it appeared, as it certainly would appear, it would be little used for popular audiences. A more general utterance on the whole subject which is worth quoting is found in a review article by Mr H. A. L. Fisher:

The most powerful competitor of the school at the present moment is the Picture Palace, which is every day thronged with an eager crowd of children. Indeed, the popularity of the pictures among children has created a new educational problem of great importance. Is the influence now exerted by the films upon children good or bad? If the answer be that it is ‘had, then how can th© State, which spends millions on elementary education,’ look on idly and unconcerned while the value of that education is undermined by the films? . . . How far good preponderates over evil I cannot say. I only note tliat many persons of sober and substantial judgment are already disturbed by ivjiat they consider to be the predominance of pictures unsuitable for children at performances largely attended by the young.

The discovery of the tomb of King Tutankhamen, with all its treasures, will give new zest to antiquarian exploration. The operations for which the Earl of Carnarvon is largely responsible have appealed greatly to the imagination. A jaunt to Luxor, a trifle of 450 miles up the Nile, has become fashionable, and the excursion boats and all manner of vehicles and all sorts of quadrupeds have been kept busy in catering for the traffic. “The scene at the tomb,” one correspondent wrote recently, “awakens memories cf Epsom Downs on Derby Day.” Another correspondent compares the spectacle at the sealing of the tomb for the present to the farewell performance of au extraordinarily successful play “after a tumultuous run.” If this interest cf the modems in the ancients could bo interpreted as a token of respect, there would be little to cavil at. The antiquarian .professors, those who have been fortunate enough to be on the spot and those who have had perforce to look on from a distance, have had a splendid opportunity, and articles dealing with, this form of research have been in rare vogue. It now seems that a new light is to bo shed upon the achievements of Egyptian art. Says Professed Jean Capai-t, a distinguished Belgian authority ; “Practically all we previously bad of Egyptian art was merely trumpery rubbish to satisfy the vanity of people who wanted their tombs to have the appearance of royal splendour.” An American Egyptologist and historian. Professor Bcnstead, is credited with describing the goddesses guarding the shrine yet to be unsealed as being “as exquisite as anything in Greek sculpture,” and as “rivalling the greatest art of any age.” Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie writes m the Observer: “The great discovery cf a tomb full of splendid royal possessions in Egypt has given a sudden jolt to the average imagination. To realise that there is a mass of beauty outside our trivial lives is an interesting shock: so interesting that it gains almost as much attention as the details cf a repulsive murder. For the last forty years Englishmen, and later also Americans, have been in Egypt trying to understand one of the greatest civilisations, searching for its exquisite jewellery, measuring Us unequalled accuracy of work, and wondering at the expression of its sculpture. In each of these ways we must confess that we cannot in our work compare with the ancients: that we are in those respects confronted with a higher ability.” Profeesor Petrie draws attention to the great chances for the antiquarian now afforded in Syria and Irak, previously almost closed to the explorer under Turkish rule.