WORKERS’ EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18875, 30 May 1923, Page 10

WORKERS’ EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION

UNIVERSITY TUTORIAL CLASSES. (Contributed by tbe Local Branch of the W.E.A.). ORGANISATION. Owing to the illness of Mr M'Cracken at the beginning of the year, and other causes, considerable reorganisation has taken place in the work of the association. As a consequence the movement in Dunedin has never been so well equipped with officers as it is to-day. Professor G. E. Thompson remains as president of the District Council, the main governing body of the association, but Mr W. M. Bradley has come in as secretary and treasurer of this body. The organising and publicity side of the council work has been taken over by Mr Johnson, with the title of district organise! 1 . Professor Woodthorpe has been appointed director of the teaching side of the work by the Otago University Council. and ho will be associated with the Tutorial Classes Committee, of which Mr G. M'Cracken remains secretary, handling all recommendations as to classes and subjects of study. Mr Johnson is also to bo convenor of the Library Committee, and in charge of library boxes. Lest the unjnitiated should think that the association is thus heavily loaded with a large staff of heavily paid officials, it should here be stated that practically all those do the work for nothing For in each case they have their daily work as well. Professors Thompson and Woodthorpe have the work of their respective chairs at the University in Modern Languages and Economics. Messrs M'Cracken and Johnson each carry on a full list of tutorial classes in various parts of the district from Oamaru to Baidu tha, and Mr Bradley is doing private work and doing his W.E.A. work in a honorary capacity. That is the value and the cal! of the movement, that it can thug enlist men’s services whole-heartedly in the cause of working for an educated democracy.

"BEAUTY IN LITERATURE." W.E.A. PUBLIC LECTURE. For its series of Saturday night lectures, the W.K.A. is this year departing from the usual lines, by having as the control topic, "How to Appreciate and Enjoy Art," for it is thought- that a course of this nature will make an admirable supplement to the more intellectual studies of most of the classes. The Upper Oliver Room at the University was well filled on Saturday evening with W.E.A. students and the general public to hear Miss Mary 11. M. King, M.A.. give the opening lecture, taking as her title, "The Beauties of Literature," with special reference to poetry. The chair was taken by Mr J. Johnson, district organiser of the association, who apologised for the unavoidable absence of the president, director, and Professor Adams. He went on to explain the underlying idea of the course, that the residents of so beautiful a city as'Dunedin might be enabled to see all it had to offer them, and that in every way they might enter into the heritage of art that was theirs. After outlining the syllabus drawn up, he proceeded to introduce Miss King to the audience. Miss King said: '"Milton has said that our world is hung by golden chains in the empyrean, and one of these golden chains is Beauty. Let me quote to you Snencer's Hymn tn Heavenly Beauty. We see daily the bounties'of Nature in every aspect.; the beauty of man's device r the Divine beauty of the human face. What is Beauty? Keats' definition does not take us very far; the artist would see it in symmetry of outline: it is hard to define, yet -wo all recognise its existence. We seo it even where utility does not seem to demand it: foe example, in a tree. That is because this show of things is not all—it is a vague foreshadowing of tinners that are beyond—a ladder by which we climb to God. There is no need for use to beauty in Dunedin, as Nature has so amply provided it. 'June may be had by the poorest coiner!" It is the funct ion of all art to make plain to us the beauty that is resident in the world. . This is done in pictures, and . also by literature. There those who sec, hear, understand, and love more than ordinary human beings can bring to ns by their art the secret of what they see, hear, understand, and love. These people are the poets and artists, who by their works, teach us to do likewise. But it is not merely verse. When is a literary, composition poetical? It is not when it is a matter of lower reason, mere intellect, such as a scientific treatise, or the mere statistics of economics or politics; but it is when these bare facts are shown in such a light, that a white, light of divine wisdom and a rosy hue of beauty illuminates them, speaking to the heart and the imagination. The aublimest kind of poetry is religious poetry; listen for instance to the nineteenth Psalm? or the opening lines of the book of Genesis! Some verse is simply prose, for it is prosaic; certain passages of Pope's Essay on Man may have merit, but they certainly give us little help to see truth and beauty. Poetry needs to come from the men and women whom Emerson designates as "those w'ho live from a great depth of being.' In Shakespeare we find some excellent examples of the difference between prose and poetry ; in Julius Cffisar, for instance, in the speeches of Casca we have first the Casca who is dull and altogether prosaic speaking in prose, but later a Oasca aroused and passionate, gives vent to eloquent poetry. Poetry, however, usually assumes metrical language as a choice garment for its expression; it moves more than prose. When wo come to consider what constitutes poetic form and language, the main element seems to be a mystical one, and we tend to say that '*God-inspired are our very consonants and vowels!" Rhyme is a feature of modern poetry only; it is unknown in earlier writings ; it is not necesary therefore to have rhyme and metre: of greater importance is rythm or measured flow, appealing to the ear, just as balance and phrasing does in music.