Voices of Europe; Elisabeth Mann-Borgese and Kurt Rieder

Voices of Europe produced and recorded by Milton Mayer in cooperation with the University of Chicago under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcasters on this program. Milton Mayer will conduct to interview was the first as with Elizabeth non-board Jay-Z and the second with Herr Kurt reader and now Milton Mayer Senora Elizabeth a man on board Jesus of Florence is the daughter of one giant and the widow of another. She was born in Germany. Thirty eight years ago one of the six children of the greatest novelist of his time Thomas who left this country for Switzerland rather than live and let his family live under national socialism. Elizabeth was 14 then in the United States where she came to do post-graduate work after finishing college in Switzerland. She met and married professor GA Borges a

Italian poet philosopher and exiled from Miscellanies Italy a few years ago. The boy pages and their two children came back to Italy and in Florence GA by Jay-Z die. Elizabeth my onboard JJ West served as Italian editor of the publication perspectives USA is now one of the regular contributors of the Medline and Daily Mail Jarno and is active in literary work in both the United States and Europe where like her her children have had a part of their education on both continents. Her daughter Angelica is 15 and her other child Dominica is 12 so you are barred to

anything unless I should call you Mrs. March's. I suppose you don't know yourself which now that things do Europeans know how to bring up their children. Well that's a very vast question of course some of them do I guess that some people anyway anywhere everywhere can know how to be and bring up their children. On the whole I'm not 100 percent happy and satisfied with the system you're bringing up children. Why do. I think that children are too good when grownups are around and since no child is an angel you had to let out his evil instincts somewhere and then do that along the fence and the animals and I think that they are a little more twisted and more cruel than American children. Ben are you able though support this with a picture of the consequences in there in the adult life of the grown ups here.

Of course Americans have produced some clucked his false self but of course on the whole fascism and all of these things naturally have come up as a result of European education and cannot be denied him I understand. Senor Roy Jacey that you are in an indicator of her juvenile delinquency. No man as I say I don't think has any perfect system and the problems of our society are so complex that you can't just isolate one namely education and blame on good results only results on it I don't think there's any perfection anywhere but the greater degree of freedom which the American childcare mean is less PCT and less warping. I think so I think American children by and large armies and must lean forward. Then we can but you know where you stand when you see something purely that way

again. Whereas if European children you know you never knew that only European manners are better than European men are so much better. Yes European Chinaman president of grown ups is a little gentleman or lady but that's. Do the Europeans have in general I have a low opinion of the American children. Yes on the whole they look down on the American children. They think that a little barbaric a little wine and then they don't study or learn anything that is generally generic opinion that much. It's widespread in Europe. Do the schools make a great deal of difference. Does the schooling of the child make a great deal of difference either is here in Europe or in America. Then I think that the school system reflects very much the same attitude that it isn't that it teaches child relations in the states are much simpler much more direct much freer. If I may

say so much more democratic in the European system much more old fashioned than patriarchic atmosphere survived in school. Also the emphasis in Europe is on learning exclusively and not on what we call some usefully social adjustment in this kind of thing. The American child has more initiative and is happy at school. Do I understand there's been no substantial change that you can see in European education from your own time as a school child as a small child to the present time when your own children are in school. Relatively little. Of course there have been some attempts and there are some exceptions. Now I went to school in Germany but it was only three and that was awful. Then it really was an early experience. After that I went to school in Switzerland and that was already much closer to what I am. You don't learn in the United States with the educational system I think is the more progressive one in Europe.

Here in Italy by and large that has been very very little changed. There are exceptions out some experimental schools is literally the so-called get a lot in school. They are as good and as progressive as anything that we have in the States and the results of the exam but there are too few of them are they public schools the pathologic schools get that from here. LAWRENCE It is a miserable school it's called equality and the children run it and they cook their own meals there and they have their own workshops there and it's place in the slum so to speak and the main purpose of it is to keep the children of the streets and the results are quite remarkable. The children the beautiful artwork and of course they learn just as much as anybody does in any old fashioned school. But on the whole you know finally great change in the in the educational structure or attitude now. None whatsoever. The emphasis is purely on learning and on humanistic

learning. They get an excellent training in Latin and Greek. They get practically no national science and no silly time whatsoever and the whole tone is still as it was 30 years ago and as far as the democratization of education is concerned as a consequence of the war you don't find it handy and it has been struck any room they have been very laudable attempts only in Italy. Other than that the marriage was entirely educated went to study the American system and have done their best and reform the system here but it just simply has not. That means practically never changes and in very very few I know señor about Jay-Z that and Germany for example. The children are divided at the ages of 11 or 12 between those few who are going and humanistic education to the liberal arts and the great man who are going on

simply to trade school. This is division of the sheep and the goats which seems very strange certainly to an American does this also take place in Italy. Oh yes we have and then to a school. Where children go until the age of 13 or 14 at least they ought to. They don't by and large but that is the law and then they go on to trade schools where the children who are supposed to go on to the university can be it. And the age of 10 US into the canals into the high school and then only a very small one indeed and as far as your view is concerned. Given the consequences of the educational system and of the parental upbringing a person's later life. I suppose your view of the future of the rising generation in Europe is not especially bright but if you depend

exclusively only on the educational system yes then my view would not be particularly bright but as I said in the beginning I think this is just one factor and in a very complex picture. And Europe is changing in so many other ways that probably during the next 10 or 20 years we'll see some change some progress on that yet not as a cause of further progress and development but perhaps it is a symptom. In what ways are the changes of Europe. In what ways do the changes in Europe that are going on Mark progresses far as you can see that although that is a bit difficult a difficult question but I mean Europe is a part of the bill and the world is changing so rapidly that Europe at least when it's important in Europe Central and Northern Europe in a second a stay behind of course and it is changing and passed down to you to the south of Italy and then take another another century maybe. But he is getting

disability in the vehicles and connections in the United States and so on certain economic and social changes. I notice at the end word that the changes that you see going on in the world are basically the good ones. Oh yes I think so in the long run and the connection of the great closer connections of Western Europe with the United States. Oh I think that definitely is beneficial to to your family. Would you say that there was any benefit going the other way that you can see from the old world of the new but I think certainly that the United States and the Americans every actually get to to learn not to learn from Europe what it to them then to me what what is worth preserving of the human humanistic and artistic culture I think that European Economic can have an efficient influence on the United States. You had a great deal of experience with well not only some

post-graduate experience of your own in the United States but also in the elementary education of your children there. Did you. Our satisfied were you I know you. You think American education is a great deal better than European. But where you thoroughly satisfy that is the kind of school your children encountered in the States. Would you have them altered in any way. But my impression was that that then the children started that day actually and you get to them and I had a feeling that they had during the first years in every school the American school does not stimulating enough intellectually that they did not have to work as much. Is it really that reading to them to do but if they moved up I found I saw the good side of that. What is the difference this I mean to make it quite completely that a European child say the age of 6 has to learn something of which he has to read and work awfully hard and it doesn't go into his mind and he can

memorize your double in the American child may learn the same thing at the age of eight and then it goes over like nothing without anything to teach and of course I think that is the right way and I think that's a great advantage for the child. So as we moved on and as the children reach the ABC and the teen 14 I was very very much pleased with the American system and then when they came over here I think that they compared their favorite Italian children who had toiled and worked so hard and I think that the American child learns how to go about how to find his own way how to use a reference book How to organize your material and European child and that all the emphasis there is always of memorizing and preparing for an exam and then after that to get it you know when you're bored. Given this terrible German education which you underwent as a child how is it that you weren't ruined by it.

Maybe I was good at that but if you were not visible nobody can say for sure I know but it doesn't seem to be the case you survived. Do you think by getting out of Germany or is this a matter of too many other factors. I think that the bit that has a bit complicated I think on the whole. For a child of the 20th century it is it is an advantage to be to be kicked around a bit and I do not regret the fact that my children are due to kill other reasons to me because of my work Xandra had to change around a bit I think it's an advantage for them to get some of this schooling here although I'm not a hundred percent heavy about the system. But I do think they get it maybe out of that many come back to me. It would be an advantage to them but I do want them to have some American schooling to me and they think that being kicked around as you put it in your get carried away and also when you're on German way did you some good.

I think so too we get it all done. Mine sees things differently. Even the fact that every few years to be different languages I think it's not a bad thank you very much in your ability. It is broke. I interviewed on this program Professor Wright Nicole Lucy of Innsbruck University a South Carolinian by birth who told of the terrible injustice of the transfer of the South hero with its two hundred and twenty thousand German speaking people who had been Australians for 600 years to Italy in 1919 as part of the Treaty of St. Germaine. And then I went into the south hero which is now at ten to the town of anything and

that's its German name. Its Austrian name. Our son can develop its Italian name both languages are now used throughout the south. Here are both languages are now official and in anything then I am interviewing Herr chord the reader. K U R T R I E D E R A young man a bank clerk by profession born of Austrian parents. And he is 26 years old and his point of view is very radically different from that of Professor Wright nikka Lucy. Here reader or perhaps I should say thing you are either not enough in your own or let the color line mature audience and have to be heavily the monad at the minute. You're a hero in death.

Are you an Austrian. No and and you tell him Well if you're an attorney and wiring up to the college seniority for the teller line from now through May well that get I think for Americans at least a little complicated. If you are an American from the northern part of the United States I would call you Mr Reader in the southern part of the United States I would also call you Mr Reader and if you told me you were an Italian I would cover the senor I think. No it's quite different. But how does it get that the different you say you're a Carolinian yet and not an Austrian but an attack yet. Yeah like when you tell me. Why your parents spoke German did they not yet this because you know oh my broth matters. I don't own this. And your ancestors in the south there are they spoke German

German was there my English German German and Austria was their country. Yet now let me see. When were you born in what year. In the 1930s in 1930 up there. Now at that time in the south there all had been in the possession of Italy since 1919. Yes including the town in which you were born. What did you observe in your childhood as to the situation of the people in the south. Here I have to go in they tell you to succeed them only to tell you to. And we had some secret lessons in German language Macao. It was and the possibility to love our own grammar and speaking and writing letters was only a tag and was permitted in the school already talian and it was forbidden to have any German lessons.

And. Still he sure language in every town was Italian. He had newspaper in German but every place of the war was written in Italian language and for example my it caught German both of them and they had to be written. Well done. Did your parents for example and the older people you know in boats and or in both places as they how did they did they feel that they were Italian. No they're always. And today she told him not to tell him but from Italian. There are parents that are but from German until William fantasy yes. How did you feel in your childhood.

I thought the child I had to be in. We have language in the code but when I was at home I could speak with my parents that rang my German language and therefore I hadn't any feeling begin with the question at the other child. I didn't feel that pressure of the session too high because when I was at home I could speak in my own language and in politics I didn't do anything in your life. And as you grew older did you feel that you were an Australian or an attack and had the thought was between our three young and you tell him it was a bad thing that the freshet had forbidden 14 Odeon to keep on their leader who was them and their life sucks. Other than I know what on the other the

costume of the Tyrolean brought to that opinion and that this one against my feelings because I thought why can't we be really. In our reading but still you did not grow up hating the attack you know I didn't take wine or italian of my own. My brother Italian but my friends school friends are very good people. I couldn't be against this boy and this girl I met in my friend. In my childhood not in the mood time I have known many tell you and friendly but really friendly to me more friendly to me than

in Germany. Some of these older people might met here in the south hero and also in Austria itself feel very strongly and they fight for the restitution of the foul here from the hands of Italy. Back to Austria and dirty thing to me to be a just in case their cause seems to me to be a just cause a professor is a quite wrong feeling when they're on the road. The cows now are living now. Another time they tell their audience you're grown up under the fresh air and didn't know. Possibility to return to the have that had good feeling running like them.

Well how do you feel about living in the south and living among the people most of whom are still Australian by by descent or by birth but many of them are all of time or attack and how do you feel about this campaign to rectify the injustice of 99. It can't be done that that and next it would be a negative out the cow. People must become new people here and not the much feeding out through them. But I don't have to tell you if we go return to Syria and have been for the kind of year I don't know how we can meet. In there with the feeling that custom eating

and although they often happen. Yeah or headed yes. You mean that you are. You feel that you are really partly a tad. Yeah I probably tell you but I had to feeling that owed him and felt proud of this. And yet you do not sympathize with the campaign. No return south Iraq ought to know. Weina politics in there oh and thought. But there is that the cow that many quality of but addition from that. Prize from the right from church from the church. If they surely

these people have to go speak to the people in the caring. Oh and speaking of friendship and brotherhood. Another Hey didn't they tell him language other than Bieber. What crucially do praise our Again most of the briefing out there or other again that they tell you in government now and they are speaking very hard sometimes again to tell them of our government and they don't like it because of our interest. Yeah and you're observing the wrong tree. Love between the people and upbraid. And now in this situation we have to leave. We have to do

observe especially with this commandment and the Italian people who are our nearest neighbors can be our enemies. We have to live with them and see their way for a good companionship. Now the narrator in your view what proportion what percentage of the people of Australian descent Austrian background agree with you. I often the older people quite or against my feeling. But then there is a new generation who are I think and I quite sure is about 75 percent with my opinion. Then if I understand your view and that of a perhaps a large portion of

your generation you would not. Have the south Iraq already turned off. You would let the thing stay as it is I don't know. Every other solution for that is how thier own people as living with Italians they tend to be ousted and they are they are not. I was 3 and that they would have been yes yes a go here reader. One last question and and I suppose a very hard one. If Italy went to war would you serve in the Italian army. Yes I have to say in Italian. If by any very remote chance Italy went to war against Austria What would you do.

So Larry Hart question your ask me but I have to say the one thing that I can't. Fight against my own brother and Knight those who are the Austrians or Germans. I would do my duty is no good. I can but I can't take a leaf and shoot against another brother of mine. Who are they all three of. Yeah I can do it. That is that much of an Austrian. You still are. Yes I mean this case. I would be at that Italian. You would be a bad thing and that Italian and that for my new Fatherland. I understand. Thank you very much Harry. I said it.

Voices of Europe was produced and recorded in Europe by Milton Mayer in cooperation with the University of Chicago under a grant from the educational television and radio center. This program is distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This program has been introduced by Marvan partner this is the end of the Radio Network.