SOME IMPRESSIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 17, 21 January 1931, Page 10

SOME IMPRESSIONS

ENGLAND TO-DAY

AFTER EIGHT YEARS

Although Miss Esther Baber's nine months absence abroad was chiefly for health reasons and in order that she might make arrangements in England for further staff for Marsden School, Karori, of which she is the well-known principal, much that she observed and many of the** opinions expressed in an interview. with a (.'Post" representative on her return to Wellington yesterday are of general interest. Miss Baber is a member of the English Headmistress's Association; and had hoped to bo Home in time to attend their conference, but unfortunately her ship was delayed and did not arrive until the day after the conference was finished.' "However," said Miss Babor, "I met many of the mistresses at an afternoon tea and was asked if I would represent the association on a deputation to the 5.0.5.8. W. i training centre in domestic work at | Market Harborough and afterwards mako a report to the association. 5.0.5.8. W. stands for the Society for Overseas Settlement of British Women, . and the society was anxious that the , headmistresses of the secondary schools , in England should consider sending their girls there after they had finished their education, with the idea of giving them an insight into practical home work, particularly those girls tvho thought they might go out to the colonies. The S.O.S. have taken over the hostel from the Government, and I thought most highly of it, even for girls going out ,as teachers, for it should givo them what I call a 'house sense.' "The Headmistress's Association was also very interested in the desire of the Government to extend the school leaving age to 15 plus. It seemed to be viewed with favour in educa-, tional circles, provided that they are not rushed into it before their equipment is ready." Miss Baber said sho had listened to the Duchess of Atholl and Lady Astor speaking on the matter in the House, and they had both mentioned that th© suggestion seemed, to have been brought forward at &■ very inopportuno time, when the country was in a depressed state and every economy essential. It had. also been urged that the matter should be left to the boards or school committees to decide for themselves. Then again, if tho new rule .came into force it would be compulsory, and in some quarters it was felt that parents should have the right to say whether their children should vcontinuo at school or not. INDIVIDUALITY ENCOURAGED. Of the girls' schools she had visited Miss Baber said she had been very interested in their buildings and in their beautiful libraries, which seemed to be a particular development in Eng-1 lish school life at'present. The schools^ received large amounts from their boards and the Government, and parents also were very generous. "Another thing about the schools which itruck me was their individuality," said Miss Baber, "and this is encouraged. The tendency in New Zealand is to make all the schools more or less alike and everything settled and arranged for from the Education Department. I enjoyed very much my visit to the secondary school at Croyclon, where the headmistress told me they were encouraged to specialise and develop along their own lines." Art -work was the specialty at Croydon, while another school would perhaps specialise in the classics. The science equipment was very good in tho English schools, and hurao science departments were being strongly de- ■ voloped. In some ,schools girls took it when they had Unished their more academic course and had passed their examinations, and others took it "in their stride," as it were. AVhitelands Training College for* women students, one of the training colleges in connection With London University, where she had been taken by the. college doctor, Dr. ,Maj;y Blair (sister of Judge Blair, Wellington), was also mentioned by Miss Baber, who said that the new college buildingH. designed by Sir Cecil Gilbert-Scott, architect for the Liverpool Cathedral, were the most excellently designed buildings she had ever seen. "DOLEFTJIi D'S." "England I thought had altered very much in the last eight years," continued Miss Baber. "What struck me was what you inigl.t call a collection of doleful D's. There was trade depression, depression in agriculture, the abuse of tho dole, tho, abominable infatuation of women for dogs (the pavements are impossible), and tho destruction of the countryside by motorists and greedy contractors."! Kegarding the dogs, Miss Baber said that everywhere one heard-of "those wretched women" who paid enormous sums of money for nurses and doctors for their dogs. She knew of one woman whose dog was sick, and after she had called in a doctor she ..telegraphed to London for a nurse, who tamo and was kept six weeks at £.3 3s a week. It had made her "perfectly sick," especially1 after visiting Dr. Barnado's .village and seeing so many children there who might be adopted. The motorists she considered by destroying the countryside were really killing the goose that laid the golden egg, beeahse there would soon be no place in any direction for them to go to. 'As London was "reaching out," contractors were putting up houses by the dozen and in hundreds, just a brick thick, and each house the replica of its fellows —ribbon development it was called—and in these areas treej were inconsiderately cut down and there were none of the littlo parks oi open spaces which one somehow expected to find. A WRONG RESULT. "You feel that the Government is not realising quite what it is doing by its taxation," said Miss Baber,, speaking of the wealth of England. "It is driving out of the country many people of moderate means. You find ever so many people saying about their friends, 'Oh, they cannot live in England now,' they are living in France or Belgium or ——' (as tho case may be). Then again many married couples are living in boarding-hQuses because they cannot afford to jh'avc their own homes. You feel that tho Socialistic tendency of the Government in taxing the wealthy people is hurting more the middle-class people, and destroying homo life." Many people with beautiful homes and estates —and a really fine influence —had had to give them up.. The very wealthy, so often the new profiteers, could pay their taxes, but those who had been the refining influence and the backbone of the English people were having to give up all that ma.de for beauty and refinement. "I spent a good deal of time- in English country,'' concluded Miss Baber, f'and found things very depressed because there were so few people working. All—particularly the small fruit farmers this year—have the depressing tale that they cannot get tho prices for their products because of the dumping. This was in marked contrast with what I saw in Normandy. I saw more people working in the ten days I was in Normandy than I did during my seven weeks in English country." Miss Baber visited France and Italy, making a special visit to study the Byzantine architecture of Ravenna, where some of the oldest churches in Europe are to be found-