MISS MAUD ALLAN

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 61, 18 April 1914, Page 6

MISS MAUD ALLAN

(From our Special Correspondent.)

DUNEDIN, April 16

This morning I called on her and found Miss Allan —the woman —even more compellingly interesting than Maud Allan —the dancer. She is taller than she seemed on the stage (except in Chopin's "Funeral March"), her face has the charm of power, and her eyes are big with expression. She is colonial, having been born in Toronto, Canada. Most of her school days were passed in San Francisco. Miss Allan is quite an enthusiast over the American system of public school education. It is her opinion that the American and the German educational systems are the best in the world. At a very early age she was sent abroad to continue her musical studies, for music has always been a passion with her. While in Berlfn she worked very hard, not only at her music, but at

the language, and in three months had made sufficient headway to read the newspapers and to converse in German. To quote her own words: "I wanted not only to talk in German, but also to think in German, so that I

might better understand the masters whose music I was being taught to play." It was the same with French. She studied not only the language but the habits and ideas of the people. From music to dancing is a very

easy transition, for music, after all, is movement. The girl who loved and thrilled to every mood of the composers, whose receptive mind discerned the vision and .dreamed the dream pictures of. the masters, was filled with the desire to bring these same emotions to life. So she sought for a medium of expression, and found it—not in the school of ballet dancing, with its multiplicity of steps and its conventionality of design, but in the oldest school of all —the Greek.

9 IHE FAMOUS DANCER INTERVIEWED FOR THE SUN

Miss Allan's first great success was in Vienna in 1903, when she appeared before the members of the Koyal Academy of Music, and all the men of art and letters in that brilliant European capital. Another appearance that she likes to think of is the one in Berlin when,, under the auspices of her old Academy of Music, she danced in their theatre, that being the first time the theatre had been used for any other than a strictly musical event. In 1908 came London Town, and with her first appearance there a fame that is world wide. Her stay in London was a series of triumphs. She had the honour of being presented to Queen Alexandra and the late King Edward, and to our present King and Queen. Social as well as artistic success has come to her, and through it all she remains unspoiled and charmingly herself. * We spoke of Ibsen and of Wells and Bernard

Shaw, of whose works Miss Allan is an ardent admirer; and from these our talk drifted to the ever present picture play, and here she thinks there is vast room for improvement. Plays written for the film —not films of existing plays—that is her opinion.

i Our visitor was delighted with her first Australasian reception. She found her audience on Saturday night attentive and receptive. But she thinks we Australasians are not "go-ahead" enough—we are .rather inclined to allow ourselves to be "side-tracked." Her advice to the young girl who feels She has a mission is: "Go straight ahead with your own idea, in spite of all the good advice your friends give you. Nobody else can see your work in the light in which you see it. Nobody else can do the thing in quite your way.'' HONOEIA.

not infrequent, if the transactions of learned societies are referred to. "Scientific research usually becomes limited when a woman scientist, accustomed to work with a colleague, dispenses with his services and works alone. I think this fact is associated with one of the chief feminine charrus—women work best when employed with someone and for someone. They labour less results than is the case with men; hence they only put. their best into work that is inspired by some object outside the work. They need someone to spur them on and encourage fresh effort. Perhaps this is why the best work done by women scientists has been always the joint product of colleagues in partnership. The Practical Side. '' Although so few women axe eminent scientists, there are still some ways in which girls with a scientific turn of mind might earn a, living. Lady secretaries possessed of some scientific knowledge can offer admirable help to scientists engaged in writing on scientific subjects. These girls make a place for themselves. If their knowledge is sufficient, much help can be given to the author. Here lies ah opportunity for the enterprising girl. > "Many doctors have lady secretaries who acquire some knowledge of medicine, and who have often been trained as nurses. "Most girls' schools and colleges have a science mistress on the staff, and there are some efficient lady instructors in the various branches of science. "Openings for women who are gifted scientists are certainly not plentiful. But there are few women capable of taking advantage of these opportunities, and parents and teachers would do well to examine the chances of employment before allowing their daughters or pupils to pay greater attention to scientific studies as a means of livelihood. Natural aptitude for scientific research, if once discovered in a might, however, conceivably enable her.to earn a living, in some branch of work where knowledge of chemistry would increase her salary, or be, at any rate, a valued asset in the eyes of an employer."

At the close of his interesting resume of the position and prospects of women in scientific work, Sir William Eamsay made the re.quest that no correspondence should be addressed to him on this subject, as he is too fully occupied to discuss the matter further.