TEST OF CIVILISATION

Hokitika Guardian, 7 May 1930, Page 1

TEST OF CIVILISATION

VALUE OF THE FINE ARTS,

(Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, May 1 4.

The banquet at the opening of the Royal Academy at Burlington House was held last night, when there was the usual distinguished assemblage. Replying to the toast of “The Royal Family,” the Duke of York expressed the opinion that efforts to improve the condition's of life in the gloat industrial centres must start from the belief that ordinary health and contentment were essential to vigorous and successful life in the body politic. “In fact,” continued the Duke, “no refinements of civilisation can be built upon foundations of misery and squalor. The arts will not flourish without patronage, and there is no stability of wealth without the general welfare of the people. The fine arts are perhaps the surest signs of genuine civilisation, and the greatest memorial that a generation can leave behind it.. Of the educational value of art, there can be no doubt; it is a potent means of elevating and ennobling a nation’s morals, and, therefore, it should he protected and encouraged by those who have the direction of a nation’s affairs.”

Lord Thomson, .Secretary for Air. replying to the toast of “The Forces of the Crown,” said that no human being could foresee what the development of armaments would he. One might he dismayed to think a machine might outstrip the human spirit. The soldier, the sailor and the airman of to-day were vastly different from the men who had' joined the Forces forty years ago; they had a different outlook. Many of them were highly skilh ed technicians, and they had to be men capable of controlling their nervous system under peculiarly appalling conditions. They were not conscripts nor mercenaries; they were citizens who had adopted the great profession of arms, and who were prepared and anxious to live up to their calling. They were waiting with cjuiot confidence for any trials which might come.

Replying to the toast of “His Majesty’s Ministers/’ Lord Parmoor said that art culture was as essential an element in the system of national education as the teaching of industry and science, and should stand as a barrier against what was not unfairly designated as the growing mechanisation of human life and action. He felt that the British school of art was not adequately represented in art exhibitions abroad, and that the Royal Academy and the Government, in cooperation with others interested, should promote an exhibition in othei countries of chosen masterpieces oi British artists, illustrative of _ the great master craftsmen of different periods.