The ODD ANGLE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 33, 9 February 1943, Page 2

The ODD ANGLE

(By MacCLURE.) @ HERE WE GO AGAIN The opening of another war-time school season—our fourth —brings with it a repetition of this farce of "new" text-books. Brother Bill's last year's French and Latin become practically worthless in the short span of two months between the closing of the old season and the opening of the new. Nellie's 1942 text-books on algebra and trigonometry, purchased at such a high cost in cash and located after such terrific labour (and luck) on the part of mum and dad, assisted by the other members of the family, are now not worth a damn except as waste paper; even the second hand book stores' people look at them askance, well knowing from bitter experience that less than five per cent of them will be asked for the following year. The kids' last year Caesar, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, no longer of any use whatever cannot even be burned without rendering one liable to prosecution; the history of New Zealand, Bert used to pass his lhatriculation, has also to be scrapped because the new one has a couple of new notes, an added date or two, a new picture of Dick Seddon taken side face—or some other such darn nonsensical reason. And for all this dad's hardearned wages—and in many cases some totally inadequate widow's pension—has to be paid out all because, so far, no one has had the sense or courage to openly tackle this scandalous state of affairs. ® WHAT DID GLADSTONE SAY IN 1885? Nobody begrudges the kids the best there is in the way of textbooks. Anything that is going to help them in later life is worth paying for now. The cost of the kid s education is one of those things that no parent with an atom of common decency is going to moan about. Every day our scientists and educationists are making new discoveries; every day the map or the world is being changed, more light is being thrown on the civilisations of the past, facts are coming to light about all sorts or things—and people. It is only right that these additions to our knowledge should be added to our textbooks. It is reasonable to expect that the theories of yesterday s scientists —and they were as full of them yesterday as they areto-day-should be discarded and that what Gladstone said in 1885 would be left out of this year's history beok m view of what Mr. Nash or someone else said in January, 1943. We even have a right to demand, such alterations. But surely no one would argue that the Latin primers that grandad and granima used when they first, landed here were inferior to those used in Queen Anne s choco-late-making days—admitting that every now and then some bright genius develops a new method ot making Caesar and those old boys less boring to the modern kid. © the costs of modern education Education, and its effect on those "educated" lads in our midst, could be debatable subjects if we were inclined that way. Actually we suffer the educated ones in our midst, accept them along with mosquitoes, rationing, Orders-m-Council, only taking notice when the cost 01 their education hits us in our own pockets. And that, my friends, is what this craze for scrapping last year's text-books is doing. To me— and to you—and to your neighbpur, making us old before our time, irritable, hard to live with, filling our days with untold misery, soaking our clothing with perspiration while we chase after them, emptying our pockets while we pay out for them, causing us to literally lose "blood, sweat and tears," our sense of humour, all appreciation of the benefits that (or so we're told) will come to us as well as our lads and lassies if they procure, at an enhanced price, the revised edition of Livy, a shorter Shakespeare, Mac Fungus' latest text-book on botany, or the new edition of Marcus Delirius— with notes. ("Make sure it has the notes, my dear.") Rats! 9 WHY THE FARCE ? Now let's face the position. For 34 years to my intimate knowledge, the school-book salesmert have been driven nearly crazy trying to cope with this senseless demand for "new" books. For the same period neither mum nor dad have been at their best physically, mentally, morally, emotionally, spiritually—or financially. All this could be ended— and should be ended. Everyone knows Caesar is dead along with that host of other Latins whose works our kids imist be acquainted with. Everybody who has been in France knows that they speak English over there and cannot understand our French. And everybody knows that no important changes in botany, algebra, arithmetic, trigonometry and the thousand other subjects our kids must learn, have been made since January, 1942. And everybody knows there is a war on. If not they can inquire as to accuracy of the current rumours that there is. And—here's the point—everybody knows that the tens, of thousands of tons of new text books have to come here in ships—at the risk of brave men's lives —at a time when "every inch of shipping space is valuable." Why then is this farce still carried on?