MODEL OF OLD SCHOOL

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31235, 6 December 1966, Page 1

MODEL OF OLD SCHOOL

A scale model of the old Courtenay School is the latest addition to the museum of education being established at the Christchurch Teachers’ College.

Sponsors of the project hope that, some day, an early school such as this may be transferred to the new Teach-

ers’ College site at Ham and used to house the museum. The model in the picture has the original plans of the Courtenay School on the wall above and a photograph of the actual building on the left. This exhibit is the chief fresh feature of interest in the display of the old material now on show at the college. Other items include a 1926 school timetable, a copy book of about 1915, a “little reader”

which once belonged to Agnes Brown, two boxes of blocks, and a writing slate. On the rear wall is a reading chart with big letters and common sounds shown in distinctive colours.

The display has created tremendous interest among both staff and students of the college. The items are not merely curiosities of other days. They are referred to in lectures which trace the history of education.

Some of the staff are prepared to support a return to “the good old days,” citing the Courtenay School plan as a case in point. The drawing by “T. L. Lambert, architect, Hereford street, Christchurch,” has the schoolroom to the left (in both model and plan), the “parlour” at middle front, the kitchen behind it, and two bedrooms to the right—school and school house in one. Lecturers with an eye to both comfort and close supervision have been quick to note that the fire place is in the middle of the building and that early teachers at Courtenay could “toast their toes in the kitchen, have a cuppa, or talk to the wife” while watching the class through the open door into the classroom. Present residents of Courtenay are keenly interested in this part of the education museum. The school will celebrate its centenary next year in a later building which is now one of the modeKcountry schools of the Teachers’ College. They want to borrow both the plan, photograph and model for their anniversary display and the college has agreed. Mr M. Wallis, who made the model, will make more of typical types of schools in early Canterbury.

Mr J. D. Panckhurst, lecturer in charge of the museum, said he was still keen to gather old schoolbooks, textbooks, journals, teachers workbooks before they were lost or destroyed. He was particularly keen to get “Our Nation’s Story” series, used 30 to 40 years ago. Misses J. Earle (left) and E. Johnson are shown examining the display yesterday. Exhibits are changed about every three weeks.