pointed out. " Get on or get under," " there's always room at the top," and other 100 per cent. efficiency whips spur on the ambitious and give a feeling of worm-like inferiority to the others. Slogans are nothing new, really. But to-day's have a concrete goal— quite unlike those on which I was reared, and all spoken by my father. " Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers," " money ruins character," " all is sophistry and make-believe," " let us clear our minds of cant," " you must dree your weird," " Mecca sickens at the long delay " and " hest thou not heard the pother o'er thy head." I must say I prefer them even though all are associated in my mind with some kind of parental rebuke.
What really set me off on this tack was seeing Shaw's Misalliance the other day in which the father meets every situation with an author—" read Emerson," " read Tennyson " and, of course, " read Shaw." If we've got to have slogans let's have those that embody some kind of philosophy, stir the imagination and give a sense of proportion. I pity the child who is told to go on or get out—which is translated too often in terms of the perpetual examination which hangs like the sword of Damocles over the school year.
* * * *
ONE of the most stirring sights in London for the past two months has been the Royal Albert Hall crammed with people night after night for the Proms. Young people predominate, especially in the arena where they gladly stand for two hours and a half (or sit on the floor when the Albert Hall sentinels are off guard). Here is an answer to those who say that all young people to-day have decadent taste in music. These girls and boys come tumbling into the refreshment rooms at the interval excitedly discussing the relative qualities of Cesar
Franck and Brahms, singing snatches of symphonies to illustrate their point, and many of them carrying pocket orchestral scores which they follow keenly all through the performances.
The B.B.C. has certainly done something very big here—both in rescuing the Proms from war-time obliteration and in sending out so many of the concerts to the millions of listeners.
* • * C
MR. William Sturge has been having a " go " at the women members of Parliament. Writing in the Weekly Review, he says : " The lady members of Parliament should submit themselves to an official dress ; not only would the dignity of the House be enhanced thereby but a welcome break would be imposed upon that fatal gift of consecutive utterance.' It is an inexplicable fact that it is difficult to talk nonsense at length when clothed in official garments."
Mr. Sturge ought to have heard some of the nonsense I have heard spoken by mayors in their official robes. Something awful!
MOST of my queuing for food is done by proxy—of necessity—but last week found me behaving in a very amateurish way in one of a large series of multiple universal providers. " Is this the butter queue?" I asked a scholarly elderly man armed with a shopping bag. " Ah," he answered. " i can see you don't often do this sort of thing. Now I belong to the club. I know everyone, and I even had my ears boxed one day by an angry guest from south-eastern Europe because she said 1 was not in my right place in the queue!" He said it quite without rancour. But admitted : " I confess I was at a loss what to do, because i had never had my ears boxed by a lady since I was a small boy."
And so we get our visitors upholding Lord Woolton—all for the love or lore and order?