School With A “ Zoo” Specialty

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 66, 10 December 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

School With A “ Zoo” Specialty

Education hi Animal Care I* or a

Halfpenny a Week

TN some of them you wil find the chilA dren gardening or modelling a farmyard as if in furtherance of a “back to the laud” scheme that means to ‘-catcli ’em young.” In others, girls and boys are 'learning the trades they will follow when schooldays are over; and you see them cooking, sewing, doing carpentry, waving each other’s hair and makipg furniture. The care of animals is one of these sidelines that the London County Council likes to encourage. The little zoo at the North Hammersmith Central Mixed. School came into being about two years ago through the keenness of a biology mistress II is sell-supimrl-ing: a flourishing concern run by a Zoo Club with a hundred members each paying the official subscription ot a halfpenny a week. This sum covers the cost of food, straw, etc., and the materials for hutches and cages, which the boys have made themselves. The management of the zoo is smooth-running; groups of la),vs and girls make themselves responsible for the cleaning and feeding of different animals; the week-end duties are apportioned out: and in the holidays arrangements are made for certain of the club members to care for Ute pets at their homes. fl’he whole idea of the zoo is to give town children an understanding of animals. Country children keep rabbits, guinea pigs, look after fowls and feed the pigs as a matter of course; but it is rara for London boys and girls

I ONDON schools are enterprising, and to the visitor they are a constant source of surprise. They are lively places, because there is always a bubbling-over of enthusiasm and interest for the sideline o e ucation.

to have the management of a collection of pets. Left to themselves, they would be just as likely to kill them with kindness as to neglect them through ignorance.

These Hammersmith children look after Angora. Chinchilla, and various hardy breeds of rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, tortoises, and budgerigars. They have also an attractive vivarium in which dwell (though you can hardly ever see them), toads and frogs, lizards and newts. A girl with a distinct bent for zoology and biology is in charge of a valuable collection of tropical tish

Here is a handy hint for cutting through glass. You may, for instance, wish to cut down a glass bottle with a long neck so that only a short, squat jar will be left.

Soak a piece of string in methylated spirits or petrol, bind it tightly around the bottle, just where you wish to cut it through, and set it on lire. AA’heu the string has finished burning, plunge the bottle into cold water, and it will crack cleanly through, around the line of the burnt string. Sheets of glass can also be divided up in this way.