SCHOOL CAPS TO BE DISCARDED

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28927, 22 June 1959, Page 16

SCHOOL CAPS TO BE DISCARDED

Kaitaia College Board Decision (New Zealand Press Association) WHANGAREI, June 21. Kaitaia College may be the first school in the British Commonwealth to decide that its boys will not. in future, wear anything on their heads. Caps, according to the principal (Mr T. R. Hawthorn) are, among other things, dirty, costly, easily lost, and do not give protection from sun or rain. In a paragraph in his newsletter to parents headed, “Those Caps,” Mr Hawthorn says by tradition every college boy throughout, the Commonwealth wears a school cap. “Some traditions in education will stand up to careful examination. and some will not,” he said “The school cap is a strange article. It encourages a boy to fumble with his headgear instead of giving a pleasant spoken greeting. “It even more quickly becomes dirty inside, and there is no possible method of satisfactorily removing accumulated sweat and hair oil. “Caps are costly, difficult to keep marked, and easily lost.” They do not afford good protection against sun or rain. “For reasons such as these, the board of governors, at its last meeting, decided that caps should no longer be compulsory articles of uniform.”