The Dominion SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 1919. A WAY TO BETTER UNDERSTANDING

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 223, 14 June 1919, Page 8

The Dominion SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 1919. A WAY TO BETTER UNDERSTANDING

■' The , j-resiclerit 'of the United States the other- month, in replying to an address of welcome in London, told a-' , story ol' Charles Lamb to illustrate a point he sought to make that a better knowledge of men and nations went a long way ,to remove personal and international misunderstandings. Lamb, in company when the'name of a public man. was mentioned, inoved by impulse,, said, '.'Oh, I hate that, man !'■' "Do youknow him?".'. Lamb was asked, and somewhat confused he stuttered: "Oh, no..' You don't hate the man you know!" If the League'of'Nations is to be a League of Kca-litics, and not. a League of Dreams, walls of ignorance that separate nation from nation must be thrown down and broad highways of mutual knowledge built up. One way of spreading a, mutual knowledge that makes for peace and friendships is for the peoples, of the nations',.of i,he League,to geb to kijow the story and the ideals-of..the great men in the several nations of the League. A nation'is known to' a-' large -extent 'through ' it's representative men. ■"They call their, children and their lands by their: names. Their names arc -wrought'into'the-verbs of their language, and their works' and effigies arc in their houses, and the circumstances of the day recalls anecdotes of them." The Positivism of Frederick Harrison has appealed as'a. religion to a very small circle, but , its idea of a "calendar of great men is..pf..value,,and'a calendar of the distinguished men of the nations of the' League .would answer a good purpose. It is said that an international policeman will be a, neccs-''sity-'foTtnic League of Nations, but an international schoolmaster would ■perhaps , .make- the , work of the.poljce.r. 1 .. maiyunneccssary. It should be a privilege and a pious duty of the, members of a. brotherhood of nations to reco'guise-' the anniversaries and of the distinguished man i of the several nations of the brother-.' hood.- ■■ -.- ■..-.-.

A few days ago occurred' the. centenary of the birth of. one of the notable,' if iiol great, men of the United.States.. In a humble home in Long Island, New-York-, a hun%dred years-.ago, Walt-Whitman was born. "His , father was English and his'.mother Dutch, and' the stock ■from.iv.hich he'sprang for 150 years was marked by neither culture nor scholarship.. As he grew up ho do-, veopctl the forceful personality that gives him" a 'unique place among America's 'distinguished men...;'-Earl,v id life he felt that he was called to be a poet-with a message; He thought ho was destined to he the poet of democracy, especially America's democracy.' This was the "mother.idea' , of his writings, and he sought, to. carry it. into "the region of taste, the. standards of planners and beauty, and even into "'philosophy and religion.' , Tα' 1855. the'first' edition of his h'mi.xs of Grass appeared.- in the form of a-thin .quarto, and as the years passed, on edition; after edition, enlarged and revised, were given to the world, - and the thin quarto' is now ' a portly volume. John BuitftouGiisv an unqualified admirer .of''Whitman,'in the' Encijclopiicdin- Bi-ljiinniiifi says that ''His LcO'Vcs certainly radiates democracy as no other -modern literary work does, and brings the reader into intimate and enlarged relations with fundamental human qualities—with sex, manly love, charity, faith, selfesteem, candour, purity of body, sanity of mind.' . He used prose also t'o set forth his special message,, and he does this-, in- his-, Democratic

Vistas. Frederick Robertson, of Brighton, said that his principles were with the mob but his tastes were with aristocracy. Whitman's .tastes were with the-mob. He won the recognition of men of the highest culture—the refined'. Tennyson recognised him as a brother poethut the common people were his associates, and in their companionship he found gratification for his social instincts. In his principles and in his tastes Whitman was a democrat—and this virtue of consistency should have helped the circulation of his writings among the people, but'Amcrican authorities rc.port that no modern poet is less read among . the common people. Professor Wendell, of Harvard College, ■'says."Whitman's fate has been , ironic. It is doubtful whether any .man of letters in his country ever appealed less to the masses." But, strange to say, Whitman, whose message has missed the masses, has found an entrance into the minds of intellectual aristocrats. John Addington Symonds, poet and critic, and the author of a great book on the lhnahsancv, in Italy, was electrified by Whitman's message, and he wrote a. monogram of eulogy on the American poet. ' While Whitman must be placed among the notables of the last century, it is not likely he will have a, place among the immortals. The form or manner of x Whitman's message is against it. It is poetry, but it -reads like prose. But the chief defect of his message is in its ignor--in'g of the spiritual and exaggerating the 'material and the animal. At the end of the day ho recognised (.his himself. In his Spccimrn Days and .Collect- he admits that bis leaves of Grass arc "songs of the body," and it should have a sequel dealing with the songs of the "unseen soul." But he never wrote this sequel, and his life's work was thus a, broken column, and in the man's confession we have the best apology for his limitation and an evidence of the honesty and sincerity that run through his writings. He sang of life as he saw it and knew it and felt, it, and he was thus a poet in a real 1 sense. Abraham Lincoln whs his hero, and in his O Captain, My Captain he rose to genius, and did honour to himself as well as to the great . Statesman, Liberator, and Martyr.'