A PROFESSOR REVEALS HIMSELF

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 158, 3 July 1942, Page 6

A PROFESSOR REVEALS HIMSELF

FRAGMENTA ANIMI, by

Richard

Lawson

Whitcombe & Tombs,

Dunedin.

‘Te products of nearly half a cen- | tury of authorship (1894-1941) are | gathered: together in this volume of prose and verse by Professor Richard Lawson, who holds the chair of education at the University of Otago. That Professor Lawson is a scholar there can be no doubt, for every section of his work is imbued with his deep reverence for the masterpieces of ancient and modern thought, and his writing is enriched with many an_ apt allusion or quotation from the authors he loves. The prose writings are for the most part evoked by specific occasions. There is, for example, the graduation address delivered in 1932 to the students of the University of Otago, a talk on Philosophy and Education to the Association for the Advancement of Science, Auckland, an" address to citizens and parents on the Bible in Schools movement. And we may well marvel thatysuch work as this, written to fill the need of a passing hour, should show such wealth of thought and expression as makes it worthy this less fleeting memorial. But the fact that such work does pass the test of publication is surely proof that Professor Law- son has the thoroughness and depth that charactcrise the true scholar, who is faithful over small things. And through all his writings there beats the conviction that science, economics, or humanism alone is not suficient. "My own faith is that the universe has a meaning, that history has a meaning, that working to a better life will make that meaning less obscure, that the gespcl of efficiency taken alone is false, that man has a soul, that there is no practical life before the world comparable to that presented in the New Tostament, and that a constant direction cf thought towards the soul will bring a gradual illumination." Education, for Professor Lawson, is "philosophy in action," and education without philosophy is meaningless, A number of the shorter essays deal with aspects of religious history and

criticism. The rational approach which Professor Lawson uses in his essays on such topics as The Church and Modernism, Spiritualism, Early Christians, the Re-discovery of the Bible, does nothing to detract from the sense of deep moral fervour which pervades them, Among the verse portions of " Fragmenta Animi" are some particularly workmanlike translations, for example, the Hymn of Cleonthes (referred to in Acts 17, 28), MHell’s Portals (from Dante), and Schiller’s Die Teilung der Erde. Although Professor Lawson is completely at home in the lyric form, his particular genius finds a more suitable vehicle in the weightier classic measures or in ordinary blank verse. The most arresting poem in the whole collection is his " Cor Inquietum." In this the author tries to crystallise in poetic form the personal doubts and spiritual wrestlings which hinder his soul in its progress towards the ultimate good, The conflict between intellectual doubt and ultimate truth is finally resolved by the poet’s acceptance of the words of Augustine: "Fecisti nos ad Te, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec in Te requiescat." (Thou hast made us for Thyself, and unquiet is our heart till it find rest in Thee) and the poem ends on a note of quiet triumph. Professor Lawson reaches his highest poetic level in this poem, in which sympathetic readers will find traces of Milton: "Mysterious God, half-hidden, half-revealed, Containing all and yet excluding all; Mysterious gulf between ourselves and thee, So wide, so dark, so deep no human eye rss bridged it, no nor human light Nor humen wisdom plumbed it-wide, dark, leep, With silence that no mortal voice has brokenWhence nothing comes in voice or light or motion Save trom Thee only" Fragmenta Animi is not a book that will appeal to the disciples of iconoclasm. A lifetime spent, as Professor Lawson’s has’ been, in close association with the classics, must tend to mould not only the outward form of a man’s thoughts but even the thoughts themselves, and there is a clogging conservatism about (Continued on next page)

BOOK REVIEWS

(Continued from previous page) his thought and style. The poetry in fact suffers to some extent from the absence of a little flamboyancy. But to compensate for this there is a depth of thought and a spiritual intensity seldom found in modern writing. Considering this, it is a pity that the publication itself should strike such a sober note. The general get-up is not such as will encourage the Gasual reader, and though the paper shortace may explain the closeness of the t,pe it fails to account for the frequency of printer’s errors. Perhaps the Professor trusted the" printer with the proofs and the printer trusted the Professor,

M.

I.

FOR AMATEUR SOLDIERS

DURING the first three Libyan camPaigns there was no weapon for which the infantry on either side had a healthier respect than the mortar. This, and the fact that’ about two’ out of three civilian.males' in New Zealand are spare-time soldiers, should ensure a satisfactory sale for The Three-inch

Mortar Simplified, Whitcombe and Tombs’s Military Manual, No. 15. Without having the official pamphlet handy for purposes of comparison, it is not possible to say to what extent the publishers have " simplified " the weapon but a careful reading suggests that very little information of material value to the amateur soldier has been omitted. What has been omitted is any reference whatever to sources. If, as it appears, the material was lifted from the corresponding Army text-book, this should be |’ made plain. It is most important that the information given should be completely accurate and that the instruction should not encourage any deviation from accepted Army practice, otherwise such freelance publicatiéns may hinder more than they help. There is a right and a wrong procedure, for example, for even such a simple business as the handing of a mortar bomb by one number to another. Some supervision or endorsoment by the military authorities of such booklets as this seems nocessary; or if that is already taking place, some clcar announcement of the fact.

J.

A.