AT SCHOOL IN GERMANY

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16520, 12 May 1919, Page 7

AT SCHOOL IN GERMANY

THE NEW ZEALAND SOLDIER-

SCHOLAR

(from our own correspondent.)

LONDON, March 27

"Writing from Leverkusen, near Cologne, "The Times" correspondent with the New Zealand Forces mentions as a strange incident that the firm of Bayer and Co.. which, during the war, made the poison gases and one-third of the high explosive for the German army should be assisting now in the peaceful education of a division that comes from the uttermost Dominion to help in upholding British arms against our German foes. The firm of Bayer and Co. has supplied a great deal of apparatus on loan for educational purposes of the N.Z.E.F. in Germany.

Tho correspondent deals entirely with the educational side of the life of the Zenlander in Germany, and he explains that for ordinary administrative purposes the division there was organised into four brigade groups—three infantry and one artillery—and this organisation was taken as the basis of the educative work. In each group there was a school where all subjects were taught. In cases where the group occupied several towns the engineering branch was concentrated in one place, the agricultural Branch in another, andl the architectural branch in a third. This helped greatly in reducing the amount of equipment necessary. Onthe other hand, the general education and oommercial sections provided for instruction in each centre.

The cost of equipment, it is mentioned, has not been great, for tools, paper, and other articles have been requisitioned in Germany, while the directors of some of the excellent technical colleges in and about Cologne have greatly assisted by the loan of valuable up-to-date material, such as snlit sections of oil and other engines, electrical appliances, and other things, while tools, cameras, timber, sewing-machines, and oven a milk-testing machine have B°en borrowed or bought in Germany. Tho cost of tools and other appliances and material secured in Germany was very low compared with what it would have been had these been obtained in England, especially when the decreased value of the mark is taken into consideration.

As originally drawn up, the scheme made provision for an education period of seven or eight months, but the unexpected rapid demobilisation from Germany has interfered with it.