KIDDIES AND THE WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 72, 25 March 1915, Page 2

KIDDIES AND THE WAR.

WHAT AUCKLAND CHILDREN ARE THINKING. SYMPATHY WITH BELGIUM, A GERMAN AND THE BRITISH _ . BULLDOG. Most of the outward and visible signs that the British army is engaged in war [ are to be found in child life. Daily sanguinary conflicts are waged on beach i and in playground. There is the crack of the toy pistol, the roll of the toy j drum, and defiant shouting from ruiniaI ture trenches, and now and then one' can pass a school and hear,the children singing ''Tipperary" in chorus with a zest that is .seldom applied to the orthodox morning song. But it is in what the kiddies are writing and drawing that is found the real evidence of the influence of the war on the child-mind and imagination:' This morning a -"Star" reporter paid a "visit to one or two of the schools to ascertain just what the children think about the war. Notwithstanding all the multiplicity of events and issues that has arisen since the outbreak of war the average Auckland child can tell you as clearly-and readily as most adults what were the incidents immediately leading up to the "clash of millions." "Who cantell mc how the war started?'' asked the headmaster of the Normal School of a class of boys and girls of ten and eleven. Immediately a small forest of hands were put up, and the children who were called upon to. give answers accurately told the story of the Sarajevo murders, the Austrian ultimatum, and the successive steps taken by Russia, Germany, France, and England" WONT? BE J3ERMANS. Asked whether they were playing any war games, one of the boys explained ■ that Standards IV. and V. had been carrying on a deadly conflict of holding and attacking a fort, but up to the present they had not agreed which were Germans and which English, both sides being too patriotic to play German- 7But it.. is amongst the sturdy little fellows of eight and nine that the most thrilling deeds are at all events, enacted in their thoughts. "I am a j soldier, and I belong to the English Army,"- wrote Harry, aged nine, of Nelson Street School. "When 'we.; were at war with the Germans I shot ten in an iour. - When we -were fighting again 300 of my-men were shot. Then we were fighting the Ausirians, and captured 6,000 prisoners." - This warrior was shot in the leg. Curiously enough, nearly all the Standard 11. boys who were- writing about soldiers ultimately stopped a bullet with a leg. "Jack, aged nine,' elected to'be a "Belgium ".wlio .-was fighting the ''cruel Ger.(Obviously "the. children, have been "vividly impressed by the stories" of .the German atrocities.) "My house was blown up, and I have had no food for five days. My children are in England -with- their lands cut off," he wrote.- Another shot twenty ■Germans in two hours. "I won r a Victoria Cross, and this is how I won it," lie " "When we were going" to the front"l saw a~torpedo boat". "Lian to the cannot and fired at it, which •blew it to pieces." CAUGHT fffifjJDHK TROUSERS. George, aged To7is a courageous youth. He elected—che-unpopular role of a German, who also was shot through the leg and taken prisoner. " "I was sent to England, where I was guarded by a man; who had a rifle and a bulldog" he proceeded:.. "After being a prisoner for some, months I tried to escape; but the bulldog; caught mc and tore my trousers." - -*-*.- "*-"-*-. . "■ I

Also rendered hora de combat, a nine-year-old French soldier was lying in hospital -eagerly-listening• to- the-news of the war, when a shot fang "out and wounded a nurse." Vengeance quickly overtook the assailant. "I at once got a gun and s-oTthe German who shot deposed the wounded warrior. .. " - '

BELGIAN BOY'S STORY. The extent'to which the stories of the .war have quickened the imaginations of some of the older children is revealed in" "one-or two strikingly original essays written by the Standard VI. children of the Nelson Street School. Enid, aged 12, writing an impromptu essay on "The Life of a Belgian," describes how she went to the Town Hall, and with her brothers adopted a little Belgian boy. And this k the graphic story. Enid'made her little refugee" tell, when be speaks of reaching Louvain with his motor in the course of their flight. "Oh, I shall never forget it. The women's screams and prayers broke the stillness of. the night as the murderers did their work.- The only ransom they would accept was drink, and. that made them worse. One night mother and I crept from the place while our guards slept their drunken sleep. On the way to Antwerp we saw evidences of their armies—buried houses, wrecked towns, and dead bodies." Here, to give a convincing touch to the narrative, the writer parenthetically says that at this stage the boy closed his eyes as if to shut out the memory. "We feel sure God will end the war as He sees fit, and forgive them as He forgave His Bon's murderers," concludes this imaginative little girl." Should not such stories, such simple trustfulness, move neutral nations to take the field on Belgium's side, if not to preserve their position in the world's eyes? '•'OH, HONEY, HONEY!" Iris, another Standard IV. girl described the parting of a Belgian soldier from his family on the outbreak of war. "The night before dear father was called away b e said, as he kissed mc good-night, 'I think nothing could ever separate us, we are 60 happy.'' When I awoka, in the morning I felt conscious of ah unpleasant feeling," for .which I could' not"-ac-count. I was just about to ring formy old black nurse, when she burst into my room sobbing and weeping violently- ' Why Mammy, what's the matter?' 1 asked in surprise. 'Oh, honey, honey!' she .moaned, 'de Commissionaire am here, and he's come to take marster away.' My mother lay limp upon the chair. My father took mc upon-his knee and said" gravely, ' My darling, war has been declared, so that, this is jthe last -day we shall spend together on earth.'-"- -

A very small boy brought in a marked anti-climax -to a brilliant "bayonet charge. '""We wer e ordered- to charge,.", he wrote, "60 without any hesftatioh we' obeyed bhe command. Down the narrow street we raced, risking our lives at every step. At last, mud-stained, we lay down to rest." Hilton, aged 10, a scholar at the formal-School,, describes, as a .serious ■blunder Germany's attempt to. ctoss Belgium "So far all has gone well on both sides, but particularly for the Allies,", is -his summing up of the 'situation,, which at all events shows that^hia view i» a duly restrained one. Ttaeßame idea, of not allowing patriotism to give a distorted another Normal

School Standard IV.,boy .wrote: "It is progTeßsmg".'favourably'fo'rall with, the esception-oi_&ernjany_and Austria." WHAT, OH, WHAT? " NolV'We iave" 'England,' Russia, Servi»and Belgium fighting the Germans, Austrian's, and' Turks; What will become of Germany?" asks - Gordon, in the same standard. Echo answers "What?" Most, of the scholars in this school seem to be dominated by a keen sense of the; heroism of the Belgian nation. ""Apart altogether from the stimulus it has given to patriotism," said one schoolmaster to the " Star " representative, "the war already seems to have slightly decreased the waste in food' that goes on in the schools. Mothers habitually send their children to school with more lunch than they can eat, with the result that it is most difficult to teach the children that waste is wrong. The caretaker feeds his fowls on- th e food thrown away. We hope that one good effect of the" tightening of prices will be to stop this."