COUNTRY GIRLS’ VISIT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22371, 19 September 1934, Page 4

COUNTRY GIRLS’ VISIT

YESTERDAY’S SESSIONS A VARIED PROGRAMME INTERESTING LECTURES DELIVERED The educational and cultural course instituted for country girls by the Women s Division of the New Zealand Farmers Union was continued in Dunedin yesterday, when lectures were delivered by i)r R. Lawson (professor of education at the University of Otago) and Miss Flack (principal of Archerfield Girls College). ]n the afternoon a visit was paid-to the Home Science Department of the University, and in the evening the visitors were the guests , of the Y.W.C.A., where they were hospitably entertained, and shown something of the varied and useful activities of this well-known orangisation.■ ; LIFE’S OPPORTUNITIES An interesting and instructive address on life’s opportunities was delivered by Mies Black (principal of Archerfield College), who impressed on her hearers the necessity for, equipping oneself to meet opportunities as they presented themselves. Miss Black opened her address by reading three passages from different, books. The first wag the fifth chapter or the Book of Genesis, dealing with the generations of Adam/ She pointed out that almost every one of the characters just lived and died,but one really lived in the true-sense of the word. The second was an extract from a play written about Florence Nightingale, wherein lay the text: “ If you arc to get what you want you must be prepared to wait for it. Opportunity was half the battle, but ( the ability to take was the other half, ihc third was a book of “ Dreams ” written by Olive Schreiner, a woman who tried to open up a new line of thought and opportunity for women. In one Of the dreams she showed that down the bank of labour and through the water of suffering lay success, . In these three readings, she said, there was some connection with her subject, and all' -would agree that the ultimate tragedy of a life wqs opportunity missed. There was no woman but had dreamed of what she wanted or who would shrink from sacrifice, but to be successfuli • her visions and dreams must be compelling. She should acquire the habit of . sustained effort as in the case of Florence Nightingale, who fitted herself for 36 years before she was really called upon to take advantage of opportunity. In almost everyone there was a desire to do something in life, and sucsesa was not in possessing great gifts, but in being ready to take the trouble to prepare onself tor opportunity. For 30 years Christ was a carpenter, but while He was doing only ordinary duties He was being trained for the big task that was to come later. It was the same now; people attending to ordinary duties should fit themselves for the greater tasks that might lie ahead, and the doing of ordinary things well gave one the training of sustained effort. Young women had visions and dreams in ordinary humdrum life, but if they would make the effort they would find that afterwards it would be worth it. In some spheres it was very easy to neglect .the ordinary everyday things that required attention, and if opportunity offered she wondered what some people would say or what they would do. In order to prepare oneself for opportunity it was necessary that one should have mental alertness, without which one could not train oneself to accomplish what one dreamed. People should learn to think things out for themselves. Their reading matter _ should be arranged to embrace biographies, studies of the arts, fiction, etc., and they should be able to live with the characters about whom they were reading. Discussions also created mental alertness. If girls in the country were able to have circles and groups by which they could discuss various matters, and before which they could make open declarations, there would be a tendency to mental alertness. There were three social principles upon which’ all community, and international life should be based. The first taught that every human sdul had supreme moral value, the second was that _ all men be-, longed together, and the third was'that the strong must stand by the weak. One must consider the ways in which these laws were either obeyed or broken in community life., v “ If we are to realise the dreams we have we should be equipped to meet any opportunity that comes,” said Miss Black. “ We should work with, and understand other people; otherwise we cannot hope to realise otir dreams. The only way to judge a person is to know the motives that lie behind that person’s- words and conduct. Our appreciations must also be developed if we are to grow in grace.. We must appreciate beauty, which is not a luxury, but a necessity ._ It is essential tWit we learn to appreciate other people and to make excuses for them when they go wrong. In short, we must find the good that is in everyone.” On behalf of the girls. Miss Joyce Wither (Berwick) thanked Miss Black for her address. « ■ ADDRESS ON POETRY Professor R. Lawson, in his address on “Poetry,” made an instant appeal not only alone by his lucid and interesting commentary, but also as a result of hu judicious selection of extracts. At the outset of his remarks Professor Lawson said that the true poet remained a youth. He never grew old and was responsive to influences that played through the that the prosaic ear did not hear properly. The ancient Greeks had a beautiful belief in the music of the spheres; they believed that the great planets and stars moved to music. They believed that Apollo was the god of light, art, and music, that he taught them the beginnings of the higher culture which raised man above the animal. and that he had actually come on earth with his music. The German poet, Schiller, had attempted to describe the nature of poets, that divine power of inspiration that remained a mystery. In one of his ballads he told how from on high Zeus gave the order to distribute the earth among men; the farmer came and claimed the fields, the hunter the woods, the merchant the spices, the abbot last year’s best wine, the king a title of all. Last came the poet—late—complaining that he, the trusted son of Zeus, had been overlooked. “ If thou has tarried in the land of dreams blame thou not me, said Zeus. “Where wert thou? I was,” replied the poet, “near thee. Mine eye upon tby face was fixed; upon- thy heaven’s harmony hung my ear. Forgive that soul that, by thy light entranced, forgot all things on earth. Said Zeus: “What can be done? The earth is given away, and harvest, chase, and mart are no more mine, but will thou choose to live with me in heaven; as often as thou comest, it shall be open unto thee? It did appear, continued Professor Lawson, that there was a rhythm running through all created things. One could not learn to be a true poet; either one was a true poet or one was not. It was a fact, however, that we were all poets, more or less, but it was a matter of degree. The whole universe seemed to be before the true poet in a flash. Burns, for example, in his poem on the mouse running before the plough, saw at once the forces in disjointed Nature and the conflict in human life. Power and insight were not always of the saddest type, however, although Shelley, working on the theme of “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought, maintained that they were. After quoting Scott s “Proud Maisie” as a poem which foreboded disaster, the speaker went on to say that the best expression he knew of a poet’s immediacy, his instantaneous plunge from the temporal into the eternal, from the visible to the invisible. wa ß in Rupert Brooke’s “ Dining Room Tea.’’ All ■were agreed that poetry was full of the power so well illustrated in that fine poem with prosaic title. There was nothing common to the poet; everything was mysterious and beautiful. In the composition of poetry imagination was a fundamental; most of the poets possessed rich and rare imaginations, a quality which was strikingly illustrated in passages in Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” This power of imagination seemed to be a kind of luck that came in a freakish way, Keats having spoken of tracing his lines with “the magic hand of chance.” It was a pity, said Professor Lawson, that more people did not read Milton. In the first three or four books of " Paradise

Lost ” there was great power of imagination, the poet giving a grand picture of man’s strength, his upward path from bestiality to a higher type of life. In all good poetry they would find the common elements of music and pictures, the pictorial symbols being presented in an harmonious rhythm that appealed to our sense of beauty. Professor Lawson quoted from Adam Lindsay Gordon, the Australian poet, as one who possessed great pictorial power. His poems, though humble, were good, and he had a wonderful capacity for interpreting the fragrance of the Australian countryside. Rossetti’s works were ethereal. Poems of sentiment were most popular, and, like popular music, they did not hold one for very long. Their danger was that, in writing them, it was so easy to become shallow, artificial, and over-mawkish. As an example of good, sentimental poetry, however, the lecturer read “ The Church Porch,” from Thackeray’s novel “ Pendennis,” stating that he was- surprised that such a beautiful little poem was not, as far as he knew, in any collection of works. It deserved a place in any anthology. It was not generally thought that there was poetry in the Bible, said Professor Lawson. But there was a great deal of it in the Old Testament, as was exemplified in David’s lament over Saul and Jonathan. The Hebrew poets struck a balance of ideas and contrasts. _ In conclusion, the speaker urged hie audience to try and realise,. if they had not already done so, the wealth of beauty that lay in English poetry. It was a pity that so many readers were not aware of the treasures that lay all around them. They were easily accessible. . On the motion of Mies Winnie Mulqueen (West Taieri), Professor Lawson was accorded a hearty vote of thanks for his address.