NEWS IN BRIEF

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 302, 17 September 1936, Page 13

NEWS IN BRIEF

Intermediate Schools Dr. E. C. Beeby, director of the New Zealand Council of Educational Research, who is making a survey of the intermediate school system, is to leave next Thursday on a tour of the intermediate schools of the North Island. Homework Question. Mr. G. M. Henderson, who at the August meeting of the Wellington Education Board asked for a return showing the amount of homework set in the schools in the board’s district, at yesterday’s meeting gave notice, of motion “that hoinework be done away with in the primary schools.”

Grievance Removed. “All teachers will be pleased at the removal of a long-standing grievance,” remarked Mr. J. J. Clark when a letter from the Education Department was read at yesterday’s meeting of the Wellington Education Board, advising that it had been decided to issue teachers’ work books and scheme books free to public school teachers. Minister to be Thanked. ’ “This is a very old matter for which we have been battling for years,” said the chairman, Mr. W. V. Dyer, when a letter was read from the Education Department at yesterday’s meeting of the Wellington Education Board advising that owing to unusual circumstances children living at Ngahauranga and attending Kaiwarra School would, in future, be permitted to travel on free school season tickets from Ngahauranga to Kaiwarra. The board passed a motion thanking the Minister for acceding to the board’s request. A Little Game.

“There is one good thing about opening school buildings: no one waits for the opening to be done,” said the Minister of Education, Hon. P. Fraser, at the Parnell School, when told that the new infant department had already beeH in use for a week. "People are not so illogical as to keep out of a new school just because there is no Minister of the Crown about to say that it is open. To-day we are all playing a game, just as children do, and as the children have already opened this building themselves, all I mean to do is declare it open.” To Mark the Coronation.

“ Crown acquisition of open lands for parks and of remaining patches .of native bush is suggested by the Christchurch Beautifying Association as a fitting means of marking in New Zealand the coronation of King Edward VIII. This suggestion was put to a meeting off the association by the president, Mr. R, B. Owen, who said that there were now only a few patches of native bush remaining in Canterbury, and they were deteriorating through the grazing of stock. He thought that the preservation of these areas would be a better means of commemoration than the erection of buildings. No Bids for ©ity Property. )

Tjie block of land on the corner of Upper Willis Street and Aro Street on which is situated the St. John’s Church Memorial Hostel—acquired as a memorial to those young men of the St. John’s Bible class and church killed in the Great War —together with the vacant 40ft. section on the Upper Willis Street side, were offered for sale by auction by Mr. C. J. ,S. Harcourt, on behalf of Harcourt and Co. yesterday afternoon. The land comprises about three-eighths of an acre, is on the tramline, and five minutes’ walk from the centre of the city. Land and building were offered in one lot at first, without inducing a bid. Then the property was offered in separate lots, with the same result.