VICTORIA LEAGUE

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27038, 13 May 1953, Page 2

VICTORIA LEAGUE

GROWTH OF CORRESPONDENCE SCHEME One of the most rewarding activities of the Victoria League, ana certainly the one that is developing most rapidly in Canterbury, is the correspondence scheme, by which persons of similar ages and interests in different countries are linked as pen-friends. The scheme was first put in practice in 1925 by the late Mrs Morton Anderson (formerly Miss May McOwen) and eight years later the work was taken over by Miss M. Skoglund. In 1944 Miss M. A. Ray took over the work and she has carried on unceasingly ever since, and has greatly widened its scope. Miss Ray, in her annuel report, writes: “The tremendous development of the scheme, at least in Canterbury, is apparent fro mthe foUowing list of countries which it now envelops: England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, five Canadian Provinces, Australian States, Union of South Africa, Nigeria, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, British Malaya, India. Pakistan. Ceylon, Hong Kong, Fiji, New Guinea and U.S.A. This list, I hope, will increase, thus cementing as many as possible (if not all) the countries within the British Commonwealth and Empire in one bond of friendship.” Miss Ray, from time to time, receives letters from families abroad wishing to make their homes in New Zealand. There object in writing is to have pen-friends in New Zealand, who will later become personal friends. The linking of entire schools has also been carried out with success and during the war, the Canterbury children forwarded many food parcels to their British pen-friends. The number of links now exceeds 9000—a most satisfactory figure, Miss Ray considers.