EXCITED FEET.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 186, 7 August 1936, Page 8

EXCITED FEET.

AT KOWHAI SCHOOL.

VISITORS FROM WANGANUI.

CIVIC WELCOME ACCORDED

To-day the Kowhai Intermediate School resounded to the tramp of excited feet; and as a matter of fact excitement in the school will continue throughout the week-end. The reason is that this. morning some 80 children from the Wanganui Intermediate School arrived to compete with the Auckland school in various games. They will be here until Sunday night, when they will leave by the express for home. At the same time the visit has a deeper significance. It will allow the Southern children to see another school and how it differs from their own; it will permit them to meet other children and to see something of the city in a way which would have been impossible had they come singly with their parents. This was the tenor of remarks made by the Mayor of Mount Albert, Mr. R. E. Ferner, who welcomed the visitors at a ceremony held in the school grounds this morning. This, he said, Was probably the first "conference" that the visitors had attended. They would benefit from it and would doubtless look back to it when, as they became older and went out into the world, they would take part in others of a more serious nature.

He was pleased to give them a civic welcome. The borough in which the school was situated was the largest in population in New Zealand. It was interesting from many points of view. He mentioned its geology, referring in thai; regard to the numerous volcanic cones. He hoped that the Maori history, connected in part with those cones, would be explained to his audience. Ceremony of Welcome.

The actual ceremony of welcome was somewhat shorter than actually intended on account of the weather. Mr. Ferner was welcomed by Mr. G. Buckley, chairman of the school committee, while the Auckland Education Board was represented by Mr. W. H. Fortune. The visitors are under the charge of the headmaster of the Wanganui School, Mr. E. H. W. Rowntree, and so inter- ! ested in the Auckland school was the chairman of the southern school committee, Mr. W. S. Jones, that he also found time to come North with the children. The few speeches there were were given from the little knoll topped by the school flagpole. On the level asphalt a few feet below the Auckland children were in massed parade.

The fact that Mr. Ferner had found time to attend was a lesson to all, said the headmaster of the Auckland school, Mr. W. F. Wells, in thanking the Mayor. Though Mr. Ferner had been elevated to a high position, he had found time, when he must be exceedingly busy, to be present. *

Then the children, who had been standing quiet, found an outlet for their excitement. There was no doubt about the warmth of the welcome, which found expression in a mighty "Haeremai!" which, of course, is the Maori form of "Welcome."

A Round of Entertainment. After that, the adults in the party, as well as the children, were shown over j the school, in each of the many class - [ rooms of which a different lesson was in progress. ! The visitors have been billeted by the local children. Some of the small hosts were ready with father and his motor car at the station this morning, while thosfe of the visitors who were not taken away, came to the school in a bus, where they went home with their hosts in time for breakfast. Then the Auckland children returned to school, leaving their guests to come over later. A full week-end has been planned. After lunch at the school to-day, the party left for Mount Eden. From there a bus took them to the Zoo, where they had heard four lion cubs had been recently born. To-morrow morning the children will play games, then in the afternoon, after a visit to the Museum, they will go to St. Helier's Bay, and then to Titirangi. On Sunday they will be taken over the North Shore, which will include a visit to the Nava-l Base. After a full day they will leave by the : 7 p.m. express.