New Britain herald., 1915-01-30
WHAT OTHERS SAY
Views on all sides of timely questions as discussed in ex- changes that come 10 Herald office.
Vipperary and the Rhine.
Springfield Republican,

It is not quite pleasant to see the British pluming themselves on sing ing music hall ditties while the Ger mans roll out their noble folk songs and patriotic hymns. Everybody knows that the Germans are both serious and a muiscal people, but It is not ill very good taste to boast or lacking these qualities; Prince Ru- pert's gay cavaliers learned not to de- spise either the seriousness or the psalm singing of Cromwells $ round heads. Nor need it be supposed that
 the German when he fervently sings the songs of his fatherland is less sin cere than the psalm-singlng Purltans | of Marston moor.
 i The London Times is quite wrong when it tries to explain away the diff
 ference by saying that British sol
 diers sing "Tipperary" because they | like it, whereas the Germans sing | their famous war songs because they 1 know that they are the songs which l a soldier ought to sing" Such de-
 fusion could only arise in an unmusi-
 cal country like England or America, | where the popular tunes come from l the music hall or the dance hall, l and not from the people. For cen l turies the Germans have been singing | their stately chorals, their pealing war songs, their gravely sentimental | vokslieder. It is their music; 1t Is l the kind of music they like to sing. | Music is their special art, and they l make the kind of music that eX-
 presses the national temperament. It | is not a high brow taste, though Germany has been called the high |
 music is as natural for them as po- 1 liteness for a Frenchman or sport for 1 an Englishman.
 It will hardly do therefore, for the | Times to urge that the Briton in time | of great emotion sings ribald songs | because emotion is to him so sacred
 thing that it is not to be expressed; the case is rather that his national i life gives no means to express his | emotions if he would-he is on the 1 esthetic level of Gavroche. To sing l trash for a lifetime and then to try to
 rise to a fine battle song would strike 1 a false note the false note for 1 German reared on Beethoven or on folk music would be to go into battle | singing doggerel from the music
 halls-Cromwell's men were tolerably
 good Britons, but they did not feel l
 for fear of expressing their real emo- | tions; if their psalms were not on the ! German level they at least had l solemn1ty.
 Americans take the English rather | than the German point of view, but | with a difference; humor is likely to | have the upper hand either of senti- l ment CT mentality-terms which
 may be distributed judiciously be-
 tween The Rhine Watch and Tip 1 perary." In Cuba some of the chor- l isters were going in for lugubrious
 songs of the 'Tenting Tonight sort
 when soldierly instinct got the mas i tery, and the rollcking vugarity of
 "There'1l Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight prevailed. The levity | is a superficial thing, to be sure, but
 it does not follow that what lies un- ] derneath superficiality is necessarily l of a superior sort. In one way or
 another sentiment must be expressed,
 and it is mainly by few exceptional Shelley, with a gift for expression, | that English civilization is justified
 mere courage in battle does not re- l quire a superior race. Now in music
 the Germans have and the English | lack a great medium for the collective 1 expression of high emotion and it is hard to twist the argument so as to | deprive them of this credit. If the Greeks had been dumb race they
 might have fought as bravely, but we
 should have had no Tyrtaeus.