NATIONAL TRAITS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24672, 30 July 1941, Page 3

NATIONAL TRAITS

ENGLISH INDIVIDUALISM The national characteristic of the English people was individualism, said Professor G. E. Thompson in the course of an address at the University this week, when he was speaking of the national traits of several European countries. He said that the humour of " the mad English " was described by a foreigner as " the pleasure that an Englishman felt in being able to think like himself." The characteristic feature of the French people was the exact opposite to that of the English, Professor Thompson said. They were pre-eminently sociable, and their writings and. thought in the last few centuries had been on social topics. That was perhaps one of the reasons why the French were not good colonisers. The Spanish characteristic was chivalry, probably a result of the wars of Charlemagne against the Moors. Italy had been the home of art for many centuries, and the Italians were consequently artistic. Those who read the German poet Goethe would immediately realise that the German people were at heart ( philosophic. Unlike the French, they appreciated Shakespeare's "Hamlet," in which the philosophy of life was discussed. ... ■ German poetry and prose, Professor Thompson concluded, could never be described as really great, for, as one writer put it. "the poetry was too full of philosophy and the philosophic prose too full of poetry."