QUAKER SCHOOLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 293, 11 December 1929, Page 9

QUAKER SCHOOLS.

NEW ENGLISH PRINCIPAL

IMPORTANCE OF CIVICS.

THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE

I Mr. Arthur Douglas, who has been appointed principal of the Friends' School, Wanganui, and who arrived in Wellington by the Ruahine last week, is accompanied by his wife and two young children. Mr. Douglas had been at Bootham School, York, for nine years until his appointment at Wanganui. j Mr. Douglas said to a reporter thatmany people did not realise that the Society of Friends and Quakers were one and the same. Right from the time of Cromwell the Friends had been interested in education. There were several large Friends' schools in Pennsylvania, a large one in Hobart, three in Ireland, and about a dozen in England. It was with the English schools that he was most familiar. There was a certain common ground about all Friends' schools in that they were all boarding schools with a capacity of 100 to 300 pupils. They did not believe in huge schools on mass production lines. Co-educational Principle. "These schools are nearly all coeducational," said Mr. Douglas, "having boys and girls as boarders and living a family life together. After 100 years' experience of co-education in mixed boarding schools the Friends are more keen than ever to continue this type of school. Not only does it lead to sensible relations between the sexes, but also to happy marriages. Further, the schools are undenominational, since there are no creeds or dogmas in the Society -of Friends. The only religious instruction would depend upon the inner consciousness of the individual. That is to say, the individual is taught to find out for himself what is wronc and what is right from his own inner light." The Bible was studied for it 6 value as literature,- a common literature which must not pass out, said Mr. Douglas, i Although the Friends had never believed in the literal inspiration of the Bible, they studied it' because it was God's word-to-man..

Study of Natural History. The schools were non-military; there were no cadets nor anything that savoured of militarism. There was practically no corporal punishment, the belief being that force did not settle anything, not even an argument, but reason. A strong point was the attention given to leisure hour pursuits. At Bootham School they claimed to have been the pioneers i.i "the formation of a natural historv society which was now .100 years old." All kinds of hobbies and craft 6 were encouraged for both boys and girls, and it was their experience, from statements by old boys in the school that this side of school life could not be over-emphasised. Mr. Douglas said he had noticed the importance 1 " attached to citizenship (civic*) in Xew Zealand, and was much encouraged to find it given an important place in educational training in the Dominion. The Friends had always aimed at that, and by allowing boys and girls to run their own societies it had been found that they were prepared to take up their responsibilities later in life. Xone of the schools took Government grants, the reason being .that they had always been prepared to endow their own schools so as to leave the opportunity for experiments in education and for working independently of hide-bound regulations. At the same time they had always invited inspection, by the Education Department. He was glad of the opportunity of taking charge of the Friends' School at Wanganui, because he realised that Xew Zealanders were genuinely interested in true education.