The Freudian Approach

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 349, 1 March 1946, Page 13

The Freudian Approach

HAVE always admired those I have heard of Miss Cecil Hull’s radio talks; the other night when she was commenting on some quotations under the heading "More Leaves from My Diary" I began to admire also her character and endurance. Here is a woman who has spent most of her life teaching in a girls’ school, who came out of her well-earned retirement during the war to teach schoolboys, atid who can still speak with tolerance of the pun. "The seeds of punning," wrote Addison, "are in the minds of all men." It is unfortunate that these seeds germinate suddenly when the child first goes to school and simultaneously begins to sit up at table with his parents for the evening meal. "Dad, a boy said to me to-day that I’m going to be rich because my name’s Richard. D’ya get me?" The child collapses into giggles and the parents gioan. They fear, with. Addison, that "Posterity will in a few years degenerate into a race of punsters," or hope with him that the seeds will ultimately be "subdued by reason, reflexion, and good sense." They think of some of their own contemporaries who still delight in making a whole room groan with more mature examples of this "false wit." Why do we groan and

jeer? Miss Hull quoted no Addison but threw out provocatively the interpretation of an American critic who would have us believe that we jeer through jealousy and that our groans are pure envy.