OCR Text |
Show WHY SHOP-TALK IS SO POPULAR Makes for Forgetfulness of One's Self. One of the last arts to mature in a young society Is the art of con version. At its best, conversation Is a kind of impromptu orchestra each player improvising In perfect harmony, time and tune, tossing the theme from instrument to Instrument, Instru-ment, the themes developing and changing, discarded or resumed a the caprice of the players. Ih s of course presupposes that the subject of the conversation be- Impersonal, that it be free to range pretty much over the whole field of human experience. expe-rience. Such conversation is first met with in the form of shop-talk, and the reason shop-talk among peo pie of the same interests or profes slon (in which is included school studies) is so popular may be that here, perhaps for the first time, we learn how delightful It can be to exercise ex-ercise our minds in company with others to the total exclusion and forgetfulness for-getfulness of our tiresome selves. That Is why students talk so eagerly about their school tasks, why business busi-ness and professional people so madden mad-den innocent by-sitters' with technical tech-nical discussions of the minutiae of their trades; why artists, musicians and scholars persecute the public with their passionate dissertations. But there Is a stage beyond this, where human Interests are broad enough and deep enough to embrace everybody, where the whole of experience ex-perience is the subject. "Clever but undiscriminating," "un-discriminating "un-discriminating because the past is not alive to them." "Highbrow? Anything rather than that!" this Is a good-natured appraisal of how our sophisticated New Yorkers make it appear to Europeans. The objection to them is that they do not know enough, either about the past or their own country. But the condition condi-tion is temporary. A passion for learning has sprung up in our land since the war which, given time, should turn out a crop of men and women able to Interpret America to Europe as It really Is, and not as a glorified Wisecrackiana. After the fire of the World war, after the whirlwind of the Jazz decade, after the earthquake of the economic depression de-pression cometh the still small voice of the spirit. "Uncle Dudley," in the Boston Globe. |