VULGARITIES.

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3827, 30 October 1936, Page 2

VULGARITIES.

THE MODERN TREND. "We see instances of. modern vulgarity everywhere, and it always takes the second rate for the first rate, and gets its values upside down,” writes Mr Maurice L. Jacks, headmaster of Mill Hill school, in the London Star. “We see it in many of our films and piays and modern novels, with their constant appeal to that which is just a little nasty, their sly suggestions that we should be amused at what should shame us, their turning the limelight on the second or third rate, their covert winks and digs in the ribs, their indecent laughter. "We hear it in our music—music which is little but noise, inanities of song beaten out in inanities of rhythm, mere sound and fury signifying nothing. Such are a few of our vulgarities; the list might be extended indefinitely. "Are they not or all of them vialotions of good taste? Do they not represent a topsy-turvydom of all values? "The ‘inner condition of the mind and spirit’ is a condition of truth, goodness, and beauty—the only real values in life; and until we can recognise these (being, perhaps better instructed in them in our schools), and until we can cease sacrificing them on the altar of convenience (it is usually the ‘modern conveniences’ that destroy the ancient beauty), we shall remain a vulgar generation.” *