SCHOOL REFORM

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 38, 13 August 1921, Page 6

SCHOOL REFORM

10 TH2 BDIIOa,

Sir,-/-My boy, aged 10, it suffering from a bad headache to-day, caused by a bigger boy knocking the back, of his head several times against a" fence at Bohool yesterday. As'l have heard that this form of "punishment," and also laying- a boy on.the ground on !his back, and bumping him up and down, is in vogne now, which is highly dangerous, as \th© back of the head, the nerve • centre^ is likely to bo affected, permit me to suggest that school masters in -upper classes teach the boys the rules of boxing so that a boy may know the fair, 'and the unfair, way of punishing others'. As morals are supposed to be taught in schools, could 'not teachers, under this section, urge children to remove banana and orange skins and also broken glass from footpaths, whioh have been thrown there by senseless persons. It is regrettable that !our City Council; which, is elected at great expense on a broad franchise, is not .allowed to have some measure of control in the! administrations of our numerous city and suburban day schools. The schools, not the Zoo, are the city's greatest asset, yet they (the schools) are controlled/by men, elected on a narrow basis. If England \«,lk>w«d her schools to be goverehed by oity councils, why. not apply the' same here? Personally speaking, I was trained in the New Zealand schools, but I am nob' satisfied! therefore my children leave later to go to a Church day school. If others, do the same, publio interest in State Education will be stimulated, to find out, "what is really wrong with out State' education system."—l am, etc.. A NEW ZEALANDER.

10th August.