The Club Smoking Room

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 4, 25 January 1908, Page 25

The Club Smoking Room

By

HAVANA

- W TOU fellows who go in for teachy ing,” remarked the journalist, / “seem to be for ever squabbling over the question as to whether . what you teach is of any earthly Use to anyone. You cram pupils up to pass an exam, and proudly talk of your successes, and then you turn round and tell us that they have been wasting their - time in learning a lot of rot of no use to them either now and hereafter, and you say that they can’t write five lines of decent English, and you ridicule the questions set them. I don’t believe myself that a hotch-potch of miscellaneous knowledge does much good to anybody, and I never yet heard of a man learning to jvrite English by following the rules in a book, but when doctors disagree, you know, it is a little hard for the mere layman to decide what is the right thing. .The only attempt we seem to make to improve our methods is by piling on more subjects to still further bewilder the infant mind. It is quite awful to see the number of things the modern child is expected to know. I notice that our teachers are supposed to be artistic, and carpenters, and gardeners, and naturalists, and geologists as well as walking encyclopaedias of information on all subjects under the sun. No wonder they generally look thin and have a worried air.” © © © The schoolmaster, who seemed to be specially addressed under the “you fellows” of the previous speaker, remarked that soon it would be quite impossible for any one person to teach all that was expected from the modern schoolteacher. “You see,” he added, “every crank and faddist that comes forward thinks the public schools are fair game for experimenting with. The prohibition people want lessons to be given on physiology, showing the effects of alcohol on the human body, and the anti-vaccinationists follows this up with a desire for lessons on the iniquities of Edward Jenner, and I suppose these fasting idiots will want us to advocate the no breakfast cure, and then we have cranks who want us to teach every kind of technical art and craft, till the really useful things like reading, writing, and arithmetic, bid fair to be crowded out altogether. What we want is to teach a few subjects, and teach them well. I quite agree with Dr. Bakewell and Professor Talbot Tubbs that the knowledge expected from matriculation candidates is altogether unreasonable, and the papers set could not be answered without a mistake by half-a-dozen people in the whole colony. But I think our schools, with all their defects, compare more than favourably with the Board Schools at Home. The pupils attain a far higher general level of education and intelligence, and you notice this in even the smallest of country schools.” © © © *Tt is very easy to find fault,” says the • parson, “but you must remember that we . are still far from having come to any definite decision as to what we really mean by education. We are only in an experimental stage, and even the experience of the past docs not always help us, as what is best for one generation is not always best for another. Then so much depends upon the home. Children who come from refined homes naturally both speak and write better English than children who never have correct grammar outside their school. As regards composition, for instance, it is not quite fair to say that one never sees a good assay. 1 have seen plenty, some of them

written by quite young children too. But you know the most correct rules will never teach anybody to write well. The styles of the man, and if the ability is not there you can never impart it. There is another point also to be considered in education out here. When children leave school they do not often keep up their reading. If, therefore, they have learnt nothing of a subjects they are not likely to learn much about it in after life, while a little knowledge of scientific matters is always of some practical use, and there is always a chance that a time may come when •they will seek to extend their knowledge. As regards matriculation, I quite agree that the subjects are needlessly multiplied. The aim of all higher education should be to train the mental powers and test the pupil’s faculty for using them, rather than to test the memory. I am afraid most of our University papers follow the example of the newer rather than that of the older universities. The old classical education may be rapidly losing ground, but nothing that has taken its place has ever produced quite as good results. The great thing is not to have a smattering of a lot of subjects, but to know one thing thoroughly, and in life it is the person who can do one thing better than anyone else who gets on. A great singer, for instance, succeeds even if she cannot do' anything else in the world but sing. I suppose most of you have been to hear Clara Butt, bye-the-bye, I hope you were all as pleased with her as I was.” © © © “ With Madame Clara Butt, no one, I opine, could fail to be supremely satisfied,” said the member who is always looked upon as the musical Solon of our little coterie. She does not, it is true, equal in volume of organ or in majesty of tone and delivery the incomparable Patti at her best, but that she possesses the fullest and richest contralto voice of the present decade there can, I take it, be no two opinions. Crossley, the experts will tell you, is the greater musician, and that is probably so; but, voice for voice, Madame Butt seems to me far the richer and incomparably the more sympathetic. Yes, I was enraptured with Madame Butt, and with her highly trained husband, though it is absurd for him to attempt such songs as ‘ The Two Grenadiers,’ which requires an organ of such natural power as he can lay no claim to, but I was very far from satisfied with the conduct of the concerts from first to last. If the object of Messrs. Tait was to gather the last possible shekel away from music lovers, regardless of the feelings or comfort of their patrons, well and^ood; they know their own business best, and doubtless they have done so; but there are things which people do not easily forget, and which are apt to react unpleasantly.” © © © “I quite agree,” said a well-known paterfamilias, “ I had four daughters and their mother to take, and though it was a ‘ pull,’ I felt that the crushing alleged to have taken place in Sydney would entirely spoil the pleasure of the concert, so decided on half-guinea seats. It was announced in definite and precise terms that there only could be two concerts, and, believing this to be a true statement of facts, and being used to the upright methods of Williamson and other firms, 1 thought myself not unfortunate when I secured my six seats far back in the stalls. There turned out to be no real crush or rush. Th are was room and to spare near me, and those round about liad

only paid five shillings for their seats, and in some cases three shillings. Next morning the third concert was announced, and if I didn’t say much I thought the more. However, it entirely failed to fill the theatre, and when 1 wandered in late in order to miss the somewhat mediocre instrumental items I got a capital seat for three shillings, and there were many vacant benches near about.” © © © “Apropos of the instrumentalists whom you do not appear to have appreciated,” said another, “I am personally inclined to side with you, but the fact remains they were encored on almost every occasion, this fact to my mind entirely nullifying any compliment contained in the enthusiastic recalls to the star artists.” It seemed to me as if the people said to themselves, “we’ve paid our money, and ‘by George’ we’re going to have our money’s worth, even if it’s only a second help of such ‘padding” as we could hear any day at a suburban local concert.” An irritating waste of time took place in the stars, requiring four recalls (neither more nor less on any one occasion) before granting an encore. A certain amount of pandering to convention we expect to render to all singers (more’s the pity), but we all knew there would be encores, and that Madame Butt would have been mortified. If they were not insisted upon, surely then a couple of pretended refusals would have done. To demand four recalls is what the elder might have said, “Coming it rayther strong.” “The happy medium in the matter of encores seems singularly hard to hit,” said an inveterate theatre patron. At a variety entertainment applause is to all intents and purposes unnecessary as a demand for more. Each artist has so much to do, and does it, whether you like it or not, and I have been at many amateur concerts where one has been deadly frightened to give even the perfunctory and negative clap of the hand intended to bespeak good natured endurance, but, as was observed, Madame Butt ran to the opposite extreme. The superlative beauty of the songs when she did return compensated, however, for the somewhat childish and inartistic display of stimulated unwillingness to oblige. “Someone was saying,” he went on, “they dislike padding items introduced invariably when swell concert artists visit us. I have a similar grievance against long intervals at theatrical performances. A play is imported from London, which, in the metropolis, commences at nine and lets out say at eleven. Here we commence the same play at eight and get out but a moment .or two earlier. The extra hour is filled in with selections by an orchestra which may be tolerable, but usually is not. Surely the audience would rather get home say three quarters of an hour earlier and have less music—if such you like to call it —and this would allow time for one interval long enough to satisfy those who must have a drink whate’er betide. I wish Mr Williamson would try this experiment sometime when he has a short play, ana amidst corroborative murmurs the early broke up.”