TRAVEL CLUB

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27397, 9 July 1954, Page 2

TRAVEL CLUB

ADDRESS BY DR. R. YINGLING Dr. Robert Yingling, of Connecticut who is at present in New Zealand on a Fulbright grant, and is a lecturer in music at Canterbury University College, was the speaker at a meeting of the Canterbury Travel Club yesterday. Dr. Yingling’s home State is lowa, and Mrs Yingling, who was also an honoured guest at yesterday’s meeting, comes from near Pike Peak, in Colorado. “There is no such thing as a typical American—at least not to an American," said Dr. Yingling, after the chairman (Mrs Cecil Wood) had

announced that he would speak on “People you meet when you travel m America.” “Every American is a law unto himself, and many people would say that every American brags,” said Dr. Yingling. Connecticut, he said, was thesouthermost of the New England States, and it extended along the shore of the 160-mile Long Island Sound. There, the people, like those of the neighbouring State of Maine, had kept the rugged characteristics of their English forefathers. They were steadfast to their principles and characterised by stability and resistance to changes. Connecticut was highly industrialised, he said, and in consequence it had a wider range of nationalities than any other American State. One glance at the list of names of members of the faculty of his college in Connecticut would show the great variety of nations from which the teachers were drawn and the students were of even more diverse nationalities. . i

In the districts near the Appalachian Mountains, Dr. Yingling said, there could be heard today the English folk songs of the eighteenth century, almost unchanged. The people there had not changed their mode of living since their English ancestors, going west from the eastern seaboard, were stopped by the mountains and settled near them in the eighteenth century. This area was not heavily populated, but the people were rugged, with strong personalities and great energy. In the southern States life moved at an easier pace, said Dr. Yingling. It was the country of large plantations, formerly worked by slave labour. “Although we have not solved the problem of the negroes as successfully as New Zealanders have dealt with the Maoris, in one respect we have done better—that is in music," he said. “We have taken the music of the American negroes and almost glorified it, and it now forms a large part of our choral literature. I feel much more could be done in New Zealand with the music of the Maoris.” The singer, at the meeting was Mr Cecil Sharr, • for whom Mrs W. E. Olds was accompanist and Mrs Hugh Fraer and Mrs J. Erwin werehostesses. Among the guests of honour were Mrs Dora Smeaton (Dunedin), Mrs Jack Hudson (Auckland). Mrs Peter Graham (Franz Josef Glacier), Mrs John Hodder (Wanganui), and Mrs Sharr.