ILL-MANNERED BOYS.

Press, Volume XLVI, Issue 7359, 11 July 1889, Page 6

ILL-MANNERED BOYS.

TO THK EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sib, —Having travelled in England, on the Continent, and even in Australia, alone and unprotected, without ever meeting with insult or annoyance of any description, I mast confess I am somewhat surprised to And that in New Zealand, with its cut and dried education system, board schools, high schools, everything to aid in cramming the minds of the rising generation, a lady cannot walk alone early on a moonlight evening along a main road from a suburban railway station without being made a football goal of, as I was recently, by a cumber of young hulking two-legged animals calling themselves forsooth boys, or possibly young men. First the ball was kicked deliberately off the muddy road on which the creatures were disporting themselves into my face, and on my endeavoring.to pass on without remonstrance or apparent notice, I was followed up by a number and the ball thrown apparently at my head, I presume, as it struck mc full in the back this time, and was then hastily scrabbled for at my heels, with a great deal of fun and guffawing. My request to be allowed to pass on without further molestation, was replied to by an insolent taunt, echoed by one after the other till I was out of sight. Now, I ask, How can such things be ? Surely the fault lies in the rison generation—the fathers who neglect to inculcate manners or to punish their eons for breaches of courtesy to mother and slaters. The legislators who make the schools huge cramming machines, in which a certain percentage of children mnst have a certain amount of stereotyped history, geography, arithmetic, &c, got into their brains somehow in a certain length of time, to the utter exclusion of culture of any description, and I, a teacher of several years' experience among educated people, maintain that such education is ruin, and education is not the word for it. In one Latin book we learn that educo means I lead up, I train. Judging from my yesterday's experience—one among many like experiences of late—l may say educo in New Zealand appears to mean, I lead up my children—not in the way they should go, but in the way they should not, perhaps on the principle of the Yankee mule, " If you want him to feed in one meadow, put him in the next with a good fence between." Trusting you will give publicity to this letter—Yours truly, G. M. B. Avonside, July 10th.