New Britain herald. [microfilm reel] (New Britain, Conn.) 1890-1976, 1916-11-17
VERSATILE TEDDY
GIVES ART Lecture
Arl Surprises Audience by His
Revolutionary Ideas

Academy Of Arts and Letters and of
the National Institute OF Arts at the
Ritz Carlton yesterday.
To support his argument that a ma
Fional literature, to be worth any
thing, had to be based on a vigor-
Gus national life and a courageous
national soul and had to avoid imita-
= ton Of the literature of other coun-
y tries, he became to encyclopedia in
Craving his illustrations from the an
tf many races as to tax severely even
the erudite and distinguished audi
9ence which faced him.
Colonel Roosevelt, finding that he
lad a sympathetic audience, was in
his best form when he departed from
x his set speech to take filings at any
= thing that happened to cross the path
OF his address-the narrow scholastic
cisn of modern university education,
the ambition Of some persons to be
cosm opoIites, or the cubistic school.
His tributes to French valor were re-
ceived with great applause. Once or
twice, when he employed falsetto
notes to pipe forth q quantity OF
scorn which words could only lamely
express, his fellow academicians be-
came almost as riotous as Teddy
: audience at Cooper Union. The steno-
graphic report of one passage Is as
follows:
There is no moro hopeless creature
from the standpoint of humanity than
the Individual who calls himself a cos
mopolitan, daughter and applause),
. who spreads himself out over the
; whole world, (laughter), with the re-
! suit that he spreads himself out so
: thin Caughter) that he comes through
! in large spots.
literature and National Spirit.
Colonel Roosevelt called Walt
Whitman GO warped though a rugged
genius Ee delivered a rather revo-
dictionary verdict on Latin literature,
which he considered of little value in
itself He denounced what he called
t'the cubist school in patriotism"
/ which considered that it discharged |
its national duty by doing nothing but
giving utterance to fantastic senti- |
ments. The only phrase in his ad- |
dress which carried back before Tues
day a week ago was a statement that |
no nation could be great or have |
great literature unless it was proud |
~ willing to fight on just occasion. |
DR.. William Milligan Sloane, Chan
cellor of the Academy presided be-
cause of the absence of William Dean
Howells, who is in the South on &C
count of throat trouble. Among those
on the platform were Charles Dana
Gibson, DR. Nicholas Murray Butler,
n II T ID art,f al yHT
DR. John FL. Finley, Robert Under
wood Johnson, and M. Gustave Lam
son.
M Lanson, who is a member of the |
French Institute and professor Of |
French literature in the University of |
Paris, now lecturing at Columbi |
University. was the guest of honor |
Winston Churchill, who was to have
spoken, was delayed by a snow storm
in New Hampshire Colonel Roose- |
welt spoke, in part as follows:
There is only one thing worse than
the stolid refusal to accept what is
great and beautiful from outsiders,
and that thing which Is worse Is
servilely to copy it, and M. Lanson
must permit me to say that even the
greatest authors do not shine at their
best when they are nearest to copying
foreign masterpiece. A great
French dramatist has produced a play
modelled on a great Spanish dramatist,
and the great English dramatist has
adapted part of Homer I think I
prefer the Spanish epic to the French
drama in that particular case, and T
know that i prefer even a dozen lines
of the Greek epic to all but half
dozen lines of the English drama,
'Troilus and Cressida'
Lauds French Heroism.
IT can't forbear saying in the pres
ence Of M. Lanson a word as to the
debt we all owe France for the French
example and especially for the French
example at this moment. AS one of
our beloved American writer's who is
here present with US. has said. in
speaking of what he will pardon me
for calling it, warped although
rugged genius of American poetry
Walt Whitman-as John Burroughs
has said, Strength comes before beau
ty and valor before, grace If France
had been only a literary and artistic
country, we would not now have the
feeling that we have when we rise to
our feet at the mention of French
heroism
1t behooves US in the United States
not to be content with repeating on
larger scale the history of CONNER
cial materialism of the great Phoe-
nician commonwealth. This means
that here in America, if we do not de-
velop a serious art and literature of
our own we shall have a warped ma
uonal life Most certainly / do not
mean that art and literature are
worth developing, unless they are
built on a national life which is
strong and great in other ways, unless
they are the expressions for that val
or Of soul which must always come