MR S. M. BRUCE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 174, 16 March 1932, Page 7

MR S. M. BRUCE

VIEWS ON CULTURE »!?'• t* ■ '* }"■ i r * r ih;. THIMKS TORLD BECOMlNG OVER-EDUCATED AND PROFOUND. INTERESTING HNTERYIEW. Dr. Cyril Jenkyns, the distinguishtd British composer, now in Sydney, jg writing character sketches of the Kederal Cabinet Ministers ' for the tondon press. The "following int.erview with Mr. "S. M. Bruee, who is going to London as Resident Minister for'Australia, is of interest. Vjfr. Bruee is inclined to think the f'Oiid is becoming artificlally profound and over-edueated, Dr. Jenkyns pates. People read the latest textj>8ijks on science, art, and • literature, pd scrupulously avoided thinking for ihemselves. They evaded' obsefving gn elementary first principle or fuhdaiaental truth. This'tabloid method of education eneouraged them to pose as authorities. Unfortunately their field of activities includ'ed solving the world's present problems. , His analysis of present-day novelwriting tvas distinctly original and illuminating. He said: "The true-to-life novel is not the best. I have just finished reading a novel, and felt as if one were feading an aecount of something that really happened. Ought a novel to affect the reader in this way? One's first impulse is to answer: Yes. To say that a novel gives to the reader the illusion that it is a faithful report of aetual oceurrences is the highest praise. "Well, I doubt it. The business of fiction, as of poetry, is not to report life, but to transform it, heighten it, niake it more harmonious in design, while avoiding the impossible and adhering to the fundamental. If your verdiet on a novel is: That couldn't have happened, the novel, as such, is likely to be bad. If your '

verdiet is, "It might have happened had life been les§ haphazard and untidy than it is," there is a fair chance that the novel is good. t "Might Have Happened." You go to a great art gallery, and you gaze at one of the supreme works, some large, magnificent group of Madonna, infants, Jesus, angels, saints, magi. In real life, did any groups of people ever stand together so harmoniously in colour and arrangement ? Were women ever' so beautifUl, babies so attractive, old men so magnificent, so statuesque -in pose? Were costumes ever so lovely, tints * so aecordant, architecture so stately, lahdscapes so perfectly cbmplimentary? No! Never! You are bound to say to yourself: "This thing didn't happen. But in an ideal world of good and evil it might have happened." ' Broadcasting in Australia, he said, was on the threshold of great development. It was a fine educational and entertainment maehine, and Cabinet fully realised that it reqiiired "imaginative guidance to get the best results. They would observe the guiding principles laid down by the British Broadcasting Co., the- outdome of exclusive experiments and experience. Some of our problems were rather different to the B.B.C., owing to the vast spaces to be covered in comparison to the small area in England, but our general needs were identical. Perhaps our respOnsibilities were greater, owing to the fact that the population was' widely scattered and some so far removed from centres of culture. The man on the land must be-made to feel that he is not missing all the good things obtainable in the cities. He realises the tremendous educational possibilities of broadcasting and how easy it is to vitiate and debase the musical taste of the old and young; and, on the other hand, how mueh could be done to raise and refine those artistic instincts of his fellowcountrymen.