WILDING LECTURE GIVEN LAST NIGHT

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18546, 21 August 1928, Page 4

WILDING LECTURE GIVEN LAST NIGHT

PROFESSOR CONWAY DELIVERS MEMORIAL ADDRESS ON CHIVALRY.

“In all his thought. s ; Virgil brings us face to face with the great mysteries of life, mysteries which, for both good and ill, for both exquisite joy and exquisite pain, have their root in human affection. Virgil’s story of Dido, over which St Augustine wept, was an undying record of Virgil’s faith in the power and radiance of human love, which could not be quenched by the brute forces that surround our human condition.” In these words Professor R. Conway, senior Professor of Latin in the University of Manchester, concluded last night the Wilding memorial lecture tor 1928. There was much applause from the large audience in the Canterbury College Hall as the lecturer resumed his chair after speaking for over an hour. In the absence of the chairman of the Canterbury College Hoard of Governors (the Hon G. J. Smith), the deputy-chairman (Mr C. T. Aschman) presided. The chairman, in introducing Professor Conway, said that the lecture was in memory of Gladys Wilding, a distinguished graduate of Canterbury College, and her brother Anthony, whose prowess in the athletic field, his gentlemanly bearing, and his general good sportsmanship brought credit not only to New Zealand but also to the city of Christchurch and Canterbury College. The Dominion had felt keenly its physical and intellectual isolation from the rest of the world. Science had bridged the gap to a great extent, and had rendered possible the exchange of ideas, and of visits such as the present one. POSITION OF WOMEN. Professor Conway said that he would take as his main theme the position of women in the social and educational life of the world. It might seem that a comparison of to-day with the thoughts of s bygone age was some-v.-hat fruitless; but it. would be seen that such was not the case. VirgU's art was expressed at a time when women were becoming a power in the social and educational world, and it was* interesting to study the views of Virgil on the movement. Virgil was ever a poet, and expressed himself through the feelings of his readers.

Through history many men had wielded their potent power more by an address which ended in an interrogation, rather than in emphatic declarations. It was not the positive or negative thunders of the prophets, i but the still, small voice of the question, which left its mark on the consciousness, and demanded a searching of heart. lIU MAN ISI X G TH OUG H TS. How much the influence of Virgil, the greatest poet of Rome, it not cl Europe, had contributed to enlighten and humanise men’s thoughts about women had not been recognised by modern scholars. This was mainly because Virgil’s readers, whether scholars or men of the world, had been still too much under the influence of certain social and racial prejudices even to imagine that Virgil could challenge them. The result was that, in reading Virgil’s great tragedy of Dido—Book 4 of the Aeneid—they had sometimes gravely censured Virgil, because they felt deeply precisely what he meant them to feel, but drew from it the wrong conclusions. The modern conception of chivalry, • the great moral movement of the feudal Middle: Ages was strange to Virgil’s time.; strange also to the time of Julius Caesar, when, a town taken by storm, all the men were killed and the women and children- sold into i slavery. Therefore, the spirit of chivalry marked a great advance along the road towards the goal, which, in politics at least, New Zealand had reached before any other country in the world. The distance which any community had travelled along that road to chivalry and sanity was a sure measure, so Dr Jane Harrison showed, of the grade of civilisation which they had attained.

LOVE VERSUS DUTY. Tho question devolved upon the claims of a woman's love as against the claims of social duty. Divorce at that, time was considered quite a natural thing, and in most cases the union of the sexes was not inspired altogether bv affection. A Roman citizen of the time would say that the . ideal union between, man and woman was of affection on both sides, but it was rare. Men would point to the disasters which had followed on unions of affection, by'' the interference of political ideas. Marriage was seldom considered a tie which could not be severed by the claims of duty to the State. “Virgil paints the horrible picture of war as the issue of narrow national prejudices, heartless political schemes and ill-treatment of human beings," said the lecturer. In moving a vote of thanks to Professor Conway, Professor L. Pocock said that, in studying the rise of .-womankind to a position of eminence, on** had to go back to the Roman period, whence the chivalry of Europe sprang. Professor Shelley recalled his early association with the lecturer at Manchester. '