WARTIME CULTURE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20051, 25 September 1939, Page 11

WARTIME CULTURE

INDIVIDUAL’S PART HEART AND SOUL NEEDED That a nation’s culture is the nation’s soul, and must be even more jealously preserved in time of war than in time of peace, was the guiding theme of remarks addressed by Professor James Shelley, Director of Broadcasting, speaking to the audience at the conclusion of the annual festival of the Wellington area of the New Zealand branch of the British Drama League. The speaker noted the evidence of real endeavour shown by those who had produced and taken part in the plays. “The reason why I am especially pleased with this year’s festival is that there is a war on, and during a war there is always a tendency, as when anything catastrophic like that happens, to say, ‘Let’s leave il over,’ ” said the speaker. “What you are actually leaving over is the development of your own souls. You cannot build a country with an uncultured individual. It is up to every individual to do what the country asks, but if the country is not asking you, do what you are doing, but with just a little more vigour than you did it before, and put your heart and sou! into it- .. .

“The country is made of living human beings, and you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. II is up to us to try and make something of the silk purses and to get away from the sow’s ear standard.” Perhaps, said Professor Shelley, people in these days who had worked on a play for months might, the night before it was due, be prevented from showing it, but that would not matter. In building the play they had built themselves, and that was what the country wanted. Anvbody could do the things they had to dci, but when they were doing the things they did not have to do, they were building themselves. That was the reason, why societies like the British Drama League were so important, and that was why the spirit he had seen displayed was such a good omen for the winning of the war.