New-York tribune., 1919-10-01
Separating Egoes

A recent number Of the excellent
French weekly L'Europe NouceVc con-
tains an interesting discussion of the
revival of the regional or, as it would
be called in this country, sectional spirit
in France the intensihcation of local
consciousness in the several provinces
into which the country was divided be-
fore the Revolution and which the purely
artificial administrative partition into
departments could not obiterate from
the public mind The writer, NJ Ben
iamin Cremieux, is careful to emphasize
the entirely intellectual and literary, as
contrasted to the political, character Of
this sectionalism, which does not in any
way prejudice the national unity of the
French people. He traces back the de-
velopment OF regional tendencies to the
last decade Of the nineteenth century, as
exemplitied especially by the poetic and
literary movements known as Cetism
in the Rretagne. Provencalism in the
South These tendencies, the writer GU
TlOusly asserts, were strengthened and
underscored by the war rather than
otherwise. Life at the front and in the
great cantonments and garrisons behind
the front furnished possibilities for the
crystallization of regional and dialect
groups, because soldiers from one part
Of the country By coming into daily con-
tact with people of other sections be-
came intensely aware Of their own pecu-
Iar!ties as to type, dialect and customs.
Pointing to the recent establishment
of a chair of Provencal literature in the
University of Aiken Provence, the
writer suggests the idea Of q similar
innovation in other institutions of learn
ing--a chair of Basque at Bordeaux, one
N Catalan at Montpelier, one in F'lem-
ish at Lille. He even goes to the length
of advocating the introduction of ia
structon in the diverse provincial dia-
lects at the primary schools. For, he
says in conclusion the genius Of Franco
IS composed Of millions Of souls which
will embellish and fortify it in the same
measure as they are more united and
more diversified at the same time"
N. Crem;eux fails to allude to the fact
that the tendency toward intellectual
'provincialism' was general all over
Europe IN the years preceding the war
On the Continent outside Of France the
Flemish movement IN Belgium is ono
pregnant instance, the bitter struggle Of
the Norwegian "iandsnaa" party to
substitute q distinct Norwegian language
based on peasant dialects for the official
J. :
ism, is another. In Sweden Selma Lager
lof is the poet Of her native province,
Varmland, above anything else. In
Denmark the literary movement Of Jut-
land, directed against the hcgemony Of
'High Danish" or the tongue Of Secland
and Ccpcnhagen, IS the bciated counter
Part Of the "plattderts.h' movement in
North Germany. IL Iceland Intellectual
aad linguistic palticularsm has reached
rs climax in the successful campaign
Tor political independence consurnnated
last winter. The most curious and least
known example, however, is that Of the
10000 inhabitants Of the Faer-Oer, the
tiny North Atlantic archipelago, who
during the last few years have been striv-
~ 10 yet their diom recognized as tho
I'm Scandinavian language beside Dan
.sh. S~edisa, Noy aeRian and Icclandic.
I. would carry 100 far to discuss thc
facte14 aetuat.ng these partcularisr
..ofesnentz, which on the whole seem TO
bc An ofzhoot and logical corollary Of
nationaIism itzelf. One il on the safo
aide in suggcsting that they are condi-
tiongd. fundamentally, by the rise of tho