The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 1922. CULTURE OR KULTUR

New Zealand Tablet, 30 March 1922, Page 25

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 1922. CULTURE OR KULTUR

is curious to think that just as men culti\sull>' vated the production of useful things and devoted themselves to the work of making t.J|s T life easier and work less difficult, they vated the production of useful things and devoted themselves to the work of making life easier and work less difficult, they either lost or failed to develop the artistic sense, and lacked the desire to produce beautiful things. Ordinarily it is assumed that men first cultivate the useful crafts, and that it is only after they succeeded in smoothing off the rough corners of life, and have attained to a certain amount of leisure that art develops.” In an age which boasts, as our age does, of its wonderful progress these words of Dr. James Walsh give us, in Carlyles phrase, “to think furiously.” And yet they contain no new message or warning—for in reality they are a warning. Amiel pointed out that souls may decay while society progresses; and he it was who said that art was simply bringing into relief the obscure thought of nature, which is a task not always in harmony with the hurry and strife of modern progress. Goethe found that art depends on a kind of religious sense, and on a deep, steadfast earnestness, which is often the growth of religion; and, as we see only too plainly, the trend of civilisation as men understand it in our day is very far removed from any sense of religion and indeed from any sense of earnestness that is not concerned with money-making or the pursuit of pleasure. 1

It is true, we are told, that ours is an age of culture, or perhaps, of Kultur. Someone lately defined culture as an aesthetic enjoyment of the benefits of the past, and kultur as the effort to get the utmost out of the realities of the present. And whether such definitions be true or no, at any rate they describe the ideas the terms represent to a large majority of people to-day. And it is evident that from such Culture, or such Kultur, or from the people whom they engross, it is futile to expect anything in the nature of deep, steadfast earnestness in any direction likely to be beneficial to art. In the past men lived who devoted their lives to study and found all the reward they wanted if they succeeded in letting one new ray of truth shine forth on the world. If they thought at all how manifold science was it was when they delighted in contemplating the unity in its diversity, and in tracing the divergent rays to a common source. The old philosophers con-

centrated on the higher and grander problems of life and destiny; in modern times to become a master implies devoting one’s life to the study of the infinitely little. Science to the old teachers was a vocation and an abnegation; to the new it is just a means of livelihood. Effort is no longer upward towards the causes of things, but downward towards their ultimate applications, And so while La D Ivina Comm edict made Dante lean during his arduous walking in spirit in other worlds, the invention of a new fertilizer makes perhaps a Knight of the Bath in our day. The deep seriousness of Newton shed new light on the principles of science; the obscure life of Thomas a Kempis gave the world a little book that is a tower of strength for ever, and on the other hand the adroit application of money made out of cheap tea and cheap newspapers procures patents of nobility for Lipton and Harmsworth. To work out a process of utilising refuse is now more than the study of causes and principles; processes bring fortunes while principles may mean starvation. Kultur thus takes hold of modern life, and catches the masses in its vortex, while Culture more and more recedes, followed by a few to whom still the mind is more than matter. No doubt Mr. Parr imagines that he is a champion of Culture through his inglorious and belated system to which he clings so pathetically. However, we know that if Mr. Parr’s schools attained to an efficiency which his brain is incapable of conceiving they would still fail to turn out worthy citizens. Culture cannot create a sound morality. The highest Culture of old Greece, or of the Renaissance—was hand in hand with social rottenness, and powerless to remedy it. Culture may throw a cloak of decency over the sores of society: it is perhaps true to say that at present Culture is akin to poetry, while Kultur represents the prose of life; and like both prose and poetry in modern life the spirit of both has wandered afar from the spirit of God. And because they have strayed degeneracy has come upon them, and the high ideals are lost. The spirit of Christianity is an inspiration; but in the spirit of the world is the root of decadence. And so we have decadent poets, and decadent painters, and decadent men and women to run after and make much of them.

“As now taught,” says Walt Whitman, “are not the processes of Culture (or Kultur) rapidly creating a class of supercilious infidels who believe in nothing?” And the American philosopher goes on to point out how futile the efforts of the whole tribe of Parr will be without “the primary moral element” “Our triumphant modern civilise, with his all-schooling and his wondrous appliances, will still show himself but an amputation while this deficiency remains.” He quotes another passage which admirably depicts what the finished product of Parrism will be like in New Zealand if the “Flag Minister” is allowed to reign much longer: “A parcel of dandies and ennuyees . . . who flood us with their thin sentiment of parlors, parasols, pianosongs, tinkling rhymes, and five-hundredth importation—or whimpering and crying about something, chasing one aborted conceit after another, and for ever occupied in dyspeptic amours with dyspeptic women.” Culture may cloak cancers, but in New Zealand the records of the police courts tell us that there is very little cloak left now for the cancers produced by the “system” of Mr. Parr. We do not know if he sees the terrible truth; but we do know that it is evident to every decent man. The “Free, Secular, and Compulsory system” will inevitably make things as rotten here as its prototype in France. France resisted long because of the hold Christianity had on the people. How long will New Zealand retain even a semblance of decency? Has she any traditional and deep-rooted habits of grace and dignity, any art, literature, or architectural glory to which Culture might cling in spite of Mr. Parr? Have we anything at all which might give the outward semblance of civilisation of which religion is the living, soul ? Alas ! we have not. And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men will not save Mr. Parr’s beloved “system” from insanitation and moral disorder.