PROPAGANDA

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 36, 11 August 1936, Page 4

PROPAGANDA

HISTORICAL SURVEY

LECTURE BY PROFESSOR WOOD

In his second lecture on "Propaganda—Past and Present," given last week for the W.E.A., Professor F. Wood, of Victoria University College, reviewed the period of the Renaissance, when for many years the technique of propaganda was kept up by the Catholic Church and developed by the missionaries. He referred to the, remarkable influence which Wycliffe and John Ball had in England—the former by his scholarly writings in Latin, which he afterwards translated into simple English for ordinary people, and transmitted by word of mouth in his pilgrimages through the country. He appealed to the literate through his books and to the illiterate by the spoken word. His contemporary, John Ball, mixed his religion and his^politics, and he and his followers showed:' the injustice of poverty. He contrast ed the riches in ' the Church with the teachings in the Gospels, and he made a powerful appeal throughput England. These ideas came out in the Reformation and broke up the old religious unity. Hitherto, everyone had thought in the same way, but the Reformation destroyed that, and there was competition between religions. Thus it became propaganda, because each leader wanted to convert people to his way of thinking. The appeal was to reason and prepared the individual mind to think for itself. This was the basis of our education. DEVELOPMENT OF FEINTING. Professor Wood traced the development of printing, which came from the East and was, thoroughly established in Western Europe by 1500. Gradually it became possible to obtain books in small type written in English, and pedple were encouraged to read them, and were able to do so much more readily than when they were copied by hand and were large and cumbersome to handle. The speaker referred to the tremendous ' influence which Erasmus had through the medium of literature, and to his keenness1 for educational reform. He pointed out that the writings of Martin Luther were straight-out propaganda, and that he made use of the leaflet to pass on his ideas. Propaganda was still directed primarily towards religious issues and controversies, but it had taken an immense move forward in technique through the use of printed books and leaflets. The chief obstacles, to their really extensive use were the narrowness of the field from which any, useful response could be expected, and the difficulties of distributing printed matter. As most of the people couid not read, they gathered together in private houses and were read to, and the material was passed on by word of mouth. Sixty per cent, of the Greeks and Romans could not read and write before the fall of the Roman Empire, and after the Renaissance literacy gradually spread.although only the upper classes could read. They wanted education for themselves, but did not think the general mass of the people should be educated. The missionaries were responsible for the poorer people learning to read, and from the nineteenth century there was a widespread effort to educate the masses. : Professor Wood concluded an. informative lecture with a brief reference to the use of mob psychology by Napoleon 111 and the introduction of the first newspaper in 1803 s and the development of advertising. He quoted the statistics for. literacy in the-dif-ferent countries of the world within recent years. ■ . An interesting discussion followed the lecture. Tomorrow evening he will deal with the subject of "Propaganda in Wartime." , ■ ■ : ■•■,-.