SCHOOL GAMES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 106, 7 May 1934, Page 6

SCHOOL GAMES.

VALUE OF ADVERTISEMENT. (To tie Editor.) I think the Key. M. K. Archdall is overlooking some very important considerations in his attitude upon school frames. In fact my ex])criencc lead.-; me to take the directly opposite point of view. To begin with, I think the alleged harm to boys is about "Jifty-fifty" either way, as between a public or a school ground for play. That is to say, the game can be just a? much overdone in either case, whether there be a big crowd present or not. But, in connection with play on a public ground, there are some- very valuable, considerations to be made. To begin with, there are thousands of the public who never have an opportunity of coming into contact with a secondary school, except through an athletic function. In New Zealand this is particularly true with regard to Rugby football. If played upon a public ground like Eden Park, a game may furnish the grandest advertisement imaginable for the- schools concerned; an advertisement which is worth more than the most elaborate of school syllabuses. I may truly say that had it not been for College Day at Eden Park I would have known practically nothing whatever about King's College, or any other Auckland secondary school. They would have been mere names and no more. To the contrary, the most inspiring Rugby picture I have ever seen was that of the maroon of King's against the dark blue background of Grammar set off by the afternoon sun on Eden Park. If it had not been for this I would never have gone all the way out to Middlemore to sec a game. And as with King's, so also with Whangarei, Rotorua and New Plymouth Higli 'Schools. The fact of the matter is a secondary school requires direct contact with the public, otherwise it might just as well shut up its doors. For the public is remarkably quick to take offence at anything which it is likely to regard as "snobbery" on the part of a school. It may not, of course, be right; but there it is, and one can't .get away from it. Therefore it is always a' wise policy on the part of a school to cultivate public* contact all it can, and to do nothing to offend its sentiment, for the coming back into favour is by no means easy. I may say that the editorial from the Christchurch "Press" quoted by you on Saturday has amused me immensely. For there, although they so strictly stipulate schoolgrounds, the papers one and all give the schools more publicity than anywhere eke in New Zealand. Then when they see the public literally streaming on to the schoolground, they wink at one another as much as to say, "Now isn't that just grand!" And there I am content to leave the subject. P.. M. THOMSON.