NOTES AND COMMENTS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 121, 17 February 1944, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

It is a matter for deep regret that the action of the Germans in fortifying the monastery at Casslno and using it in operations against the Allies, has forced the Fifth Army—after granting, at considerable cost, nearly a month of immunity—to destroy this famous seat of the Benedictine Order. The German attitude had been typical—and despicable. Ignoring a special appeal by the Pope, as well as .the feelings of the civilized world, they deliberately chose to mount artillery and construct pill -boxes in the monastery buildings, partly because of its commanding position on a height above Casslno, but partly, no doubt, in the hope that the Allies could not bring themselves to harm the historic fabric—once the chief centre of religious life in Western Europe—with its treasure-house of literature in both manuscript and print. But stern necessity has forced the Fifth Army commander to drive the enemy out of the refuge he desecrated. As a London writer has observed, “There is something more precious than'. . . art treasures . . . —victory, and the crushing forever of those who began this orgy of destruction.” The Germans, who have been ruthless in destroying the precious possessions of Europe, will not shrink from employing any and every other treasured place to delay the retribution advancing upon them unless they be shown that the urgency of civilization’s cause will brook no such compassion. Herein lies a cause for hope in the near future. The enemy has been taught a pointed, lesson. The sacrifice of Cassino could mean the saving of Rome.

A principle of some importance underlies' a letter from the Worsen Bav School Committee to the Wellington School Committees and E.lucational Association taking /xce’ption to the detailed information required for filling in the school record cards for vocational guidance. These cards, it should be explained, contain the complete history of the pupils’ school record, including intimate details as to the personal characters of individuals. The cards are filed for reference and treated as confidential to the school authorities and the vocational guidance officers. The point is; that the record thus filed is relevant to the pupil’s qualification for afterschool vocation. It apparently takes no account of the fact, often demonstrated, that many children whose character might not have been all that could have been desired during their school years develop most encouragingly later. In any case, there is something un-Hritish and intolerably bureaucratic ,in this idea of card-indexing young human beings ris if they were live stock of some kind. Furthermore, the task of keeping these record cards going—the card itself is in the way of detailed information required n masterpiece of the official form designer’s art—must add very materially to the already heavy burden of clerical work borne by school staffs.