AUCKLAND PROFESSOR IS NOT IMPRESSED

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 232, 20 December 1927, Page 20

AUCKLAND PROFESSOR IS NOT IMPRESSED

POOR PLAYS IN LONDON STUDY OF UNIVERSITY METHODS Not very impressed with modern English literature or drama, Professor C. W. Egerton, M.A., ol Auckland University College, returned to-day after a nine months’ trip abroad, where he has studied university methods and renewed old friendships. “After seeing London plays I came to the conclusion that the acting was much better than the material of the plays,” he said. One of the outstanding plays in his opinion was Eden Phillpott’s comedy “Yellow Sands.” Two light operas, “The Vagabond King” and “The Desert Song,” were pleasant things, and so was the Pepys’ play “And so to Bed.” The Lyric Theatre at Hammersmith impressed him with Shakespearean productions and he saw the interesting revival of the red-hot melodrama of the old school, “When Crummels Played,” done with pomp and seriousness. COLLEGES UNDERSTAFFED

Speaking of his university research the professor said that his observations convinced him that with the present resources New Zealand’s highei education had not much possibility of improvement. Compared with English standards, the Dominions’ colleges were understaffed. “Our standard is quite good though,” he said, “and at Oxford I was surprised to hear Professor Nichol Smith, who has a readership at Merton, speak highly of the Auckland men from the school of English.”

The professor stayed at Oxford with Mr. Kenneth Sisam, an Auckland Rhodes scholar, who has a world-wide reputation as a scholar of early English. He is assistant secretary of the Clarendon (Oxford! Press. Another Aucklander, Mr. Frank Taylor, is a lecturer in French at Christ Church. At Leeds University the professor saw Mr. F. W. Baxter, also an Auckland man. who is lecturing on English language and literature, having recently gone there from an American college. While at Glasgow Professor Egerton met Professor W. M. Dixon, an examiner for New Zealand. He spent a week at his alma mater, Dublin. The damage done in the rebellions had been repaired except in the rear of the buildings, where broken walls might still be seen. The Four Courts had been almost re-built. “Ireland is still the same,” he said. “An old place with broken and cobweh-smothered windows bears a brass plate with the legend ‘Dublin Window Cleaning Company’!”