School-Life in Canada

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 58, 9 March 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

School-Life in Canada

are schools, whatever they are, young people say, and there kJr cannot Ijc lunch difference between one and another. Bat schools in different parts of the world are as different one from the other as the countries they represent. Aek a young Hindu, young-old, with the wisdom ho learns in the colourful bazaars; or a small Islander, sitting cross-legged on a woven mat; or a young African learning his lessons under the shadow of the jungle. Their school days are not as yours, for a hundred very good reasons! If you could ask a young Canadian, from the wide, windswept prairies, if his school life were similar to yours, the answer would be an emphatic "No!" * Although the buildings arc similar to those in many parts of the backblocks of New Zealand, the climatic conditions make the daily routine very different. In the winter cold the ink in the inkwells freezes and the fire in the schoolroom is kept burning day and night from Monday to Friday. The scholars take turne at lighting the fire on Monday mornings, and whoever is on duty has to be very early that dayt. Until the temperature of the room has thawed, no lessons can be done, no water drawn or aiiything liquid used at all. The temperature is often several degrees below zero, and very frequently wild, shrieking blizzards imprison both pupils and teacher. The snow falle so thickly, drifting into large banks 60 quickly that it is very easy to become hopelessly lost, even within a short distance of safety. It is not so long ago that a teacher and five pupils lost their lives trying to return home in the teeth of a blizzard. Now, rather than take an unnecessary risk, teacher and scholars remain all night around the warm, friendly fire until the gale is epent. Next day is, of course, a holiday. Snow blindness is a dread and painful affliction, and any sense of direction at all is impossible in the teeth of a blizzard. Winter is a hard, relentless season for the Canadian prairies. The children start to and from school in pitch darkness, and even the smallest is an experienced woodsman. Ability to read weather signs is like a sixth sense to them. They have, to be ready and prepared for weather emergencies and know how to act. But it is not always whiter on the prairies. With the lengthening days and increasing warmth, the snow melts, gentle rain showers waken the prairie daisies, and then comes spring—a truly wonderful season in

Canada. Birds and beasts -which migrated or remain dormant, again make their appearance, and a thousand gay prairie flowers gleam in the buffalo grass. The rabbits and hares, whose coats change to pure white in winter, are once again brown and furry, and little gophers and prairie dogs peep at the children riding by. The most distinctive feature on the prairies is the great white owl—such a big, fellow. There are no forests and rivers, so it is very rarely that larger game is seen on the prairie. Holiday time laets three months —practically all the eummer. This is the only long holiday the children have, partly to allow the boys to ■help on the farms, and partly because the weather is almost unbearably hot. The sharp contrast between 'winter and summer divides the year into two seasons. The teacher, too, may live three or four days' journey by train away from his home, and a short holiday makee his vacation impossible. All the children help in the harvesting, in the intricate process of preparing the crops for market. The wheat fields of Canada need no description, the miles and miles of softly waving green and gold stretching across the prairie as far as the eye can eee. All kinds of grain crops, and not a few root crops, are harvested during the summer. The Canadian child is a very capable young person. It is during the holidays that the children indulge in sports—football and baseball for the boys and basketball for the girls. Skating and ski-ing, luxury sports to us, are an everyday, matter-of-fact mode of transport to them. Tennis., hockey and swimming are more popular in the towns than in the prairies. ' Once a year, Christmas time, comes their long-looked-for party. Long before the appointed hour on a cold, clear night, bright lights bobbing up and down, and tinkling sleigh bells herald the approach of the revellers. Then just at the right moment Santa Claus arrives, and his sleigh belle tinkle sweeter than the rest. He really begins the party. There is dancing ana games, and, of course, singing. Everybody joins in "Auld Lang Syne." Then out of a well-filled sack comes a. gift for all, and so with a real story book Christmas the school year ends on the Canadian prairies.