EDITORIAL NOTES.

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 5, 15 August 1930, Page 4

EDITORIAL NOTES.

IMUSIC Week was in progress in Wellington throughout last week, and will be featured in Auckland and Christchurch next week. While Wellington experienced a very regrettable bout of severe weather in the early stages, and so was handicapped from the point of view of attendance, it is certain that music lovers must have revelled fin the quality of the fare provided. The most outstandingly successful features of the week were the community singing at midday in the Town Hall and the children’s concert on Friday evening. The Town Hall on.Friday evening was completely packed on the occasion of an outstandingly brilliant performance by the school children of the Wellington district. This evening was certainly the brightest spot of the week from the point of view of popularity and interest. It is greatly to be regretted that the weather was not more kindly in the earlier period. In spite of that drawback, however, the attendances were considerable, although they might easily have been better. Experience in organising and quality of programme is always gained by such efforts, and we venture to think that one point that might suitably be borne in mind by the executive of Music Week for their future guidance is the desirability of meeting popular taste to a greater degree. As musical performances of high quality and skill the concerts were unimpeachable, but greater variéty of programme with more popular appeal would, we thirik, have had its reflection in box office receipts. After all, the aim of the venture was to popularise music, and it becomes a question of tactics whether that objective will be best gained by an undiluted dose of classical music or by a programme watered down, if that phraseology will be permitted, by a proportion of more popular matter. The success of the children’s concert itself on one side, and the recent success of the Radio Exhibition with the popular appeal made by the Maori performers on the other, show that the public are willing to turn out in large numbers when their tastes are catered for.

"THE fourth test has come and gone. The historic match was attended by the record football crowd of New Zealand, estimated to run to somewhere about 45,000 people. That huge attendance conveys its cwn testimony, to the popularity of this sport (to a cynic it might possibly invite reflection in comparison with the results of Music Week). The cases, however, are not parallel. All the world loves a combat, and in modern life, with its ordered regularity and increasingly routine nature of existence, the primitive instincts turn. more and more to sport for their expression. In New Zealand, too, there is but little from the nature of things of major importance to excite popular interest. Attention, therefore, is inevitably concentrated upon sport. In late years, as various modern amenities such as better roads, faster. motor transport, superior rail services, more quickly distributed newspapers, and above all radio, have developed, it has become possible for interest in any one thing to be more abundantly shown than formerly. ‘Whereas at the time of the visit of the Springboks the, record attendance was about 22,000,.to-day a crowd of 45,000.assembles, b The population certainly has not doubled in the interval; therefore the increased interest. is due to the cumulative effect of the various factors mentioned. Of those factors radio is not the least important, and in their record attendance on Saturday the Rugby Union was certainly reaping the popularity evoked by the ‘steady broadcast by radio throughout recent seasons. The influx of country visitors from far afield has shown the hold that Rugby has upon the whole country, and indicates that radio has built a. Rugby audience far beyond the confines of the cities primarily concerned. AN interesting survey of the results of the educational system in New Zealand was given in Auckland recently by Dr. H. B. Fitt, M.A., Professor of Education at Auckland University College. His rematks appeal to us as correct and exact-so exact indeed as to challenge serious thought on the part of all interested in the future of education. Briefly, Dr. Fitt finds that our education system is producing a generation of standardised citizens of too staid and lawabiding a character for real progress. We learn well by rule of thumb. We imbibe knowledge and reflect it accurately. We are good machinery ~ cogs, but we lack creative capacity. We lack initiative, spirit and spontaneity. We are too coldly efficient, staid and law-abiding. Culture, that something which provides a release from the tyranny of work, should be more strongly incorporated in our teaching. We should be encouraged to be creative in art and ideas, and to that end music, the arts and creative work should be more definitely encouraged. Intellectually we are abreast of the world, but our insularity and homogeneity tend to make the couritry run in a rut. Frankness demands admission of the truth of these statements. We do not see a ready remedy, but if more elasticity and creative capacity can be incorporated in our educational system, it would be much to the good.