MOUNT PLEASANT SCHOOL.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19153, 9 November 1927, Page 12

MOUNT PLEASANT SCHOOL.

TO THI EDITOR OF THE TBESS. Sir, —I should be glad if you would allow me to add a necessary explanation to your report in Monday's issue of the burgesses' meeting on Saturday. It states that the resolutions carried at meeting held some weeks ago to hear the speakers of the Open-air Schools League were not conveyed to the Education Board. As secretary of the Burgesses' Association, I did not follow the formality of writing to the Board to tell it that the meeting was rendered futile, because a representative of the Board was present. The meeting was rendered futile owing to an amendment moved and carried against my motion in favour of an open-air school, the purport of the amendment moved by Mr A. Williams being that the residents select a plan for submission to the Board. Asked by me as to how he proposed to get a decision, Mr Williams replied, "By calling a further meeting." Mr B. Riley, the Board's representative, and its building supervisor, who is also a householder of the district, was pre-

sent, as stated, at the Open-air League's meeting, took part in it., and knew that the result of the meeting left us with the question where it was before, and therefore still awaiting the Board's proposal, which it had promised to consult us on before a school was erected. Mr Eilev also knew that no further meeting "was called in connexion with the matter till last Saturday, and therefore that no official of the Association could possibly say that a plan had been decided on. The chairman of the Board, when, after the building started, a hastily gathered deputation of parents waited on him last Friday, had met the position in a generous spirit by agreeing to hold up work for a week to enable a decision to be obtained, without, however, committing the Board to any alteration if it should be desired. The result of Saturday's meeting in favour of the true open-air school type will, on the admission of the Board's technical staff, not be difficult or expensive to give effect to. Within 24 hours of meeting the chairman on Fridav a petition in favour of the same tvpe of school as Saturday's meeting declared for was signed by over forty residents and ratepayers, representing thirty children of or approaching school age. The attendance of these children is essential to the success of the school, and those vitally interested trust that the Board will meet our wishes as it has those of Fendalton, Cashmere, Spreydon, and Eangiora people. In conclusion, I must deal with the bogey raised concerning the so-called bleak and exposed situation of the site donated for the school. It is an unwarranted disparagement of the gift to suggest that on this tiny spot the elements concentrate a fury spared to the rest of the district, when within a few yards of the supposedly bleak school site are plucked in winter flowers so eagerly sought by dwellers in climatically less favoured spots such as Spreydon and Fendalton, where the open-air school is an admitted success.—Yours, 6lC '' F. H. D. GALE. Mt. Pleaaaati ffoverabw Bth, 1927.