PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3912, 5 March 1929, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday’s Otago Daily Times.)

The new Ministers are running up and down the country, each man laudably intent on learning his job, and each man with an experienced private secretary in attendance to coach him. Our Mr Taverner has gone north to get some notion of the railway system he is to control, and four of his colleagues, Northerners —Mr Atmore, Dlr Forbes, Mr Ransom, arid Mr Donald—coming south, have discovered Otago and find New Zealand bigger than they thought. Two others are to follow —Mr Stallworthy, who took office in response to a “ divine call,” and a Mr Cobb, as yet unknown to fame. Sir Joseph,* who already knows his own job and every other job, needs not to travel, but sits in the middle of the web, spinning policies. Or, to put it otherwise —

The King was in the Counting House, counting out his money—

millions and millions. If we of the south are to love Sir Joseph as we ought, some of that money must subsidise a steam service between Dunertin and Melbourne by way of the Bluff and Hobart, as in days long ago. Himsek a Southerner, Sir Joseph knows that such a service would live and thrive if helped at the start, and that it is the first =:<-p that costs. Our affections are ready and waiting; it is for him to say the word, and we rush into each other’s arms.

At this time of day it is hardly worth while debating the question of war guilt —who was responsible for the war. The world has pretty well made up its mind on the subject. But the Germans still argue, maintaining that France and England stabbed them in the back when they were trying to drive back a theatened barbarian invasion from the East. Which is clean ridiculous. Turning to a related subject, Dean Inge, who is generally worth quoting, remarks on the widely different estimates of our national character at Home and abroad.

There is an often repeated story that a captured German officer said to an Englishman, “You will always be fools, and we "shall never be gentlemen.” To which the average Englishman answers thus to himself: “ Yes, that is too true. We are gentlemen, but how ill we fare when we are pitted against the keen intellects and the cynical unscrupulousness of Continental statesmen and diplomatists.”

’Tis true, ’tis pity, and pity ’tis, ’tis true. But not what follows, considering well each separate clause: It is always the same story. We win our wars, and pay indemnities to our conquered foes. We “ labour for peace, but when we speak unto them thereof they make them ready for battle.” We rescue our friends from inevitable destruction, and they hate us for it. We pay our creditors, . and our debtors shamelessly repudiate their debts of honour. Yes, we shall always be fools—and these foreigners will never be gentlemen.” I must own that these are my own sentiments about my countrymen—but then I am an Englishman. They are not at all the opinions which are held about us in Germany.

Probably not. But what matter? It is ours to grin and bear it.

According to the opinion of Dogberry —and there is a good deal in it—“ to be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes bv nature.” Obviously good looks are a gift; but reading and writing come by nature, because our nature is capable of acquiring them, as the nature of dog or horse or elephant is not. The beasts of the field can no more read and write than they can stand erect ai.d walk on two feet. Reading and writing come by nature, and spelling—about which certain education boards and school inspectors are just now painfully exercised —spelling comes by reading and writing. The eye gets to know words as it gets to know faces, and a misspelt word has the effect of a disfigured face. In no other way did I myself learn spelling, and it has been my lot to correct in proofs innumerable the misspelling of other people. What is the New Zealand system? The system of the village dame school,- —the s “elling book ani_ columns of spelling to be learned by heart, — words as words, meaningless, it may be, as Chinese symbols. By an • by comes an examination on which a certificate of proficiency depends. The spelling test is in words that have been “ taught ” with a sprinkling of words that have j not been taught. Every failure costs i the examinee three marks. So that if in any dozen words he makes nine marks

for nine successes, and loseo three marks each for three failures, the result is nil—he makes no marks at all. Here a curseword is indicated, hot and strong. I regret that none is available.

I once heard a Dunedin merchant whose hap it was to speak at a school break-up complaining of the villainous handwriting of boys applying for employment in offices after the schools had done with them. At Auckland the other day a visitor from England, an expert in education, impeached the New Zealand schoolboy for “ lip-laziness ”; in the school yard he can shout and yell and scream; try a conversation with him, and he gives you only muttering and mumbling—lip-lazine s. If I were Minister of Education in this country my name would be Mussolini; and then, by order, in every primary school, morning and afternoon, reading aloud from ten lines of printed matter shown on the school wall, the whole form together; no mumbling, no bawling, but a clear and measured utterance —ten lines, once, twice, and yet again. For handling the pen and for spelling, ten lines of dictation, with swift and summary correction to ollow; then, on a fresh page, the same dictation again, and yet again. If I were Mussolini. Make a spoon or spoil a horn my education policy.

The Dunedin Choral Society is sick, but not unto death. That was the note of the chairman at its annual meeting. Public taste in niusic is capricious. Schubert’s greatest symphonies were ridiculed by the London Philharmonic Society at a first hearing. Many famous operas have had discouraging first nights. “ Carmen ” was described by Camille du Locle as “ Cochin-Chinese music.” and Puccini's “ Butterfly ” was the cause of so much disturbance that the police prohibited the second performance. Gounod’s “ Faust ” had such a poor reception at the Theatre Lyrique in Paris that Choudens, the publisher, sold the musical rights of publication in England for £4O ... a sum which proved, no doubt, to Messrs Chappell, who purchased it, an investment of four or five thousand per cent.

If Messrs Chappell made thousands out of an opera bought for £4O, it was because they found a market. Public taste had changed for the better. The Dunedin Choral Society may survive to fill its orchestra with enthusiasts; if so, it will not fail to fill its concert hall. But I have a letter on the subject:—

Dear Civis, —The business of a choral society, one would say, is chorus singing. In my experience it is precisely chorus singing that holds such a society together, attracts men to its rehearsals and the public to its concerts, —chorus singing from the classical oratorios, Handel’s “ Messiah,” his “ Judas Maccabasus,” his “ Samson ”; Hadyn’s “ Creation ”; Mendelssohn’s “ Elijah ” and his “ St. Paul ”; to which add Mozart’s “ Twelfth Mass,” if Mozart’s it is. Let the young men of Dunedin who would know great music and enter into the spirit of it give up the singing of vapid English ballads and on one night in the week sacrifice the cabaret and the movies for Handel and Haydn. From my nautical adviser:— Dear Civis, —It is a pleasant surprise to find a writer on maritime affairs suggesting that the day of the sailing ship is not past. Mr E. Keble Chatterton in his book “ Seamen All,” writes: “The steamship era may be only transient; the windjammer may some day come back into her own. This is not mere sentiment. but the considered opinion of master mariners, shipbuilders, and business >».en who believe the sailing ship has a future if worked in a

certain way. For the man or his merchandise in a hurry, no; for the mails, certainly not; the mails will go by aircraft; but for other uses, yes.” It would be indeed strange if the greatest motive power in the world, that is everywhere present and costs nothing, namely, the wind, were valueless, and could no longer carry our argosies across the ocean spaces. The trouble is that we are losing the ability to use it. Seamanship is dying out. Tlie deck hands of to-day may be no better than dock labourers. The'officers on the bridge can take the sun, calculate latitude and longitude, fix a course; but they could do all that ashore, and might talk like the Admiral in “Pinafore”:—

Stick close to your desk and never go to sea. And you may be ruler of the Queen’s Navee.

The captain represents the owner and is in charge of the owner's property; in relation to passengers and the internal economy of the ship he is the major domo of a floating hotel. All of which might be illustrated from the "V estris tragedy, the worst since the Titanic and the Lusitania.— Shellback.

Of the captain of the Vestris it must be said that at any rate he died like a British sailor. He refused a lifebelt and went down with his ship.

The education of women—or A woman, to use the more comprehensive term — should include.athletics, says an English authority quoted in the Daily Times. It should, and it does. Where is the girl that doesn’t learn dancing, or is unwilling to foot it featly through the night and get home in the. early hours of the morning? Then ther is lawn tennis, and there is hockey, both as strenuous as the dance. In athletics the New Zealand girl is ambitious. Already have I seen her (in my mind’s eye, Horatio) at the wickets in bathing costume for summer heat, and a member of the T’other Sex football team in plus fours for winter.

She could dribble and pass with any. Was a better kick than some, In open play among the best. And just as good in scrum. The last glimpse that I had of her—'Twas in the second spell— She held the ball, made for the goal, Was tackled low—and fell. I saw her but a moment, But still I see her there, Spread-eagled in the clinging mud And both legs in the air. The Times Literary Supplement notices an American book on “ stunts,” a word covering all sort of acrobatic and athletic exercises. Here is a specimen: Heel Jump. Materials. —A pencil. Preparation.—Place pencil on floor and stand so that toas almost touch it. Bend over -and grasp front of toes. Stunt.—Jump over pencil without releasing hold on toes." Coaching.—A sudden raising of the back simultaneously with the projecting of the body forward will accomplish the feat. The feat accomplished will be the barking of her nose on the gravel. I am thinking of a girl; but this “ stunt ’’ cannot be for girls. Picture the attitude and the process—hands grasping the toes, back suddenly raised, body projected forward—no, it is not for girls. Short skirts forbid. Civis.