TO CAMP OR NOT TO CAMP?

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 48, 26 February 1908, Page 4

TO CAMP OR NOT TO CAMP?

— & THE AUCKLAND TROUBLE. •

SCHOOL COMMITTEE DISCUSSION. CBi TELEOBAra — Special to The Post.) AUCKLAND, This Day. The coming public schools cadets encampment was the -subject of an animated discussion at a meeting of the City Schools Committee last evening. The chairman (Mr. P. M. Mackay) strongly supported the objections to tho camp which have been raised by tho Head Teachers.' Association and the Teachers' Institute. The circular from the Education Board stipulated for tho compulsory attendance of at least one cadet officer to each corps, but he considered that tho board had no right to issue such an order. The desirability of military training was not in dispute, ! but the question was whether the pro- | posed camp was good for the boys, and fair to the already hard worked teachers. He thought that in the face of tho strong opposition the board should not havo issued ,' such a circular, Dufc should have climbed down. Although Colonel Loveday had stated that the cadet camps in the South had been approved by tho teachers they had had no corroboration of tho statement. i Mr. F. Gaudin (a volunteer officer), speaking of tho alleged bad influence, ! said that they had heard nothing of these influences at tho time of the camps held at Christchurch during the Duke's visit and the Exhibition. j The chairman said he knew nothing about that, but thero were .strong arguments to be urged against putting about throe hundred yoimg^ boys into 'camp together. Moreover, it would probably disorganise school work for two or three' weeks. Ho hoped the teachers would havo sufficient backbone to say to the board that they would not be ordered about as proposed in the circular. Mr. J. F. Pullen. (another volunteer officer), who, w}th Mr. > Gapdin, .strongly suported the camp, and ■ that some of the cadet officers were toQ "girlish," and were only willing to turn out when it was a question ,rtf walking down Queen-street with their best things on. lb was puro laziness, nothing "el^e. Tho committee, ' by fiye do three*, expressed its Approval of the -camp.