TIRED OUT!

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 287, 28 August 1908, Page 7

TIRED OUT!

NIGHT CLASSES FOR BOYS. CONDEMNED BY MR. W. S. LA TROBEi PROPOSED REMEDY. "Night work is not much good for boysl" The remark, coming from Mr. AV. S. La Trobe, director of the Wellington Technical School,, half of the business of which is to hold night classes for boys, was rather lingBo you mean to say that boys attending your classes at night are deriving no benefit?, asked the pressmdn. ' "" ' " ' ''Not much! —you see, it's this way: bojß' who are serving apprenticeships, or even >if they are just working ordinarily, are compelled to work at least eight hoursr a day./ If they are apprentices they are, in nine cases out of ten, doing a good bit of bullocking work-for the journeymen to whom they are attached, so that at tho end of the eight hourjs.tliat boy is usually more tired than the man, in addition to which lie has had tlio mental strain of trying to'-flo'-what is aa simple as A B C to the journeyman. Then at five or half-past the boy goes home, washes himself and changes his 1 clothes, and has to get down hero by seven o'clock'.' What can you expect a boy to learn under such conditions? 1 He is done, and'mentally and-physi-cally nature calls out for rest, and because nature is flouted it deprives the lad of' the fullest faculty ; to 'leafii ! what can only be efficiently acquired when the mind and body, are fresh —then the mind is most receptive. "Why, T have boys in my electrical class that can hardly keep their eyes open after eight. They've been working all day, and are quite played out.; What can they: learn lii'such a/condition'?" " " '" ! ' Then what is the value of the night classes _ at, all ? asked the reporter. Oh, ; ' Vrell," I've been speaking of boys— those oyer sixteen or seventeen are naturally able ( -keep going a little longer, 1 and those older still may bo quite, able to, take full advantage'of night instruction." ' . Then night classes for boys are not really desirable ? "Certainly not! That is why a couple 4 of years, ago. I suggested that masters employing a number of apprentices to' trades we were interested in at tho school should endeavour to let.jthem attend , the school 'for .technical instruction, for ,a couple of hours a day. It is not a'one-sided proposal by any means. Whilo the master would lose the' two hours' labour, that would be soon mado more than- even by the improved efficiency of the boy, who would, too, become competent to perform certain classes of work long before he would in the ordinary course of his ■apprenticeship without good technical in-' 'struction. ■ " If we could get those boys in the daytime that now have to come at night or not at all it would be.helpful in another way. At present we have no real means for enforcing attendance, but if tho time they should be in school was their employers' it would be a different- matter altogether. Attendance would, be compulsory, - and that would mean a' higher standard of efficiency than was possible under the present system. ' " There's nothing really new about all this —it's known - and recognised all over the .world,, and in lots of places the thing, lias been done to remedy. it on lines such as L have suggested." ■ . ■'