1939: (Art at an Embryonic Level — Comhaire-Sylvain Suggesting That to Raise the Intellectual and Moral Level of the Haitian Woman It Was Not Enough to Impro…

1939: (Art at an Embryonic Level — Comhaire-Sylvain Suggesting That to Raise the Intellectual and Moral Level of the Haitian Woman It Was Not Enough to Improve the Level of Studies but That They Must Also Introduce a Little Understanding of Art in Children’s Leisure Time, Qualifying Her Statement by Explaining That “Introduction Is Not the Appropriate Word — It Exists at an Embryonic State in the Love of Singing of Storytelling and of Dance Which Are Admittedly Very Well Developed” — However at an Embryonic Level Art Could Go Awry): Comhaire-Sylvain suggested that to raise the intellectual and moral level of the Haitian woman, it was not enough to improve the level of studies — they must also introduce a little understanding of art in children’s leisure time. Qualifying her statement, she explained that introduction was not the appropriate word: art already existed at an embryonic state in the love of singing, of storytelling, and of dance, which were admittedly very well developed. However, at an embryonic level, art could go awry — the qualification revealed Comhaire-Sylvain’s characteristic attentiveness to existing cultural forms, even as the framing of these forms as embryonic betrayed the assumption that they required elite guidance to mature properly.