BATTLE OF LIFE

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 145, 16 December 1933, Page 16

BATTLE OF LIFE

PAST AND PRESENT

"I alone cannot fit the boys for the battle of modern life, nor can you^alone do it," stated Mr. F, M. Renner, principal of Rongotai College, in a special word to parents in his annual report, presented at the prize-giving ceremony yestorday. ' Mr. Renner appealed .to parents to come; and see him and talk over matters concerning their boys. The complexity of modern life, the perplexing problems of civilisation, the struggle for existence —all demanded a mental-arid a physical equipment very much in advance of what was required when parents themselves were boys and girls, said Mr. Renner. Ho mentioned how the standard of the University Entrance Examination as a mere educational test had been lifted in the last sixty years'with a view to showing at what strides knowledge had progressed and how much more a child had to know. "Add to this," continued Mr. Renner, "the changed condition of the world, the effects of a murderous war, tho desperate efforts of every nation tolift themselves out of the quagmire of bankruptcy, and, above all, the intense competition engendered by the advance of science and the development of machinery, and then you will consider that your own lives were a picnic compared with what your cnildren will have to face. It is therefore your bounden duty, as it is my bounden duty, to prepare your children for the future. You must help."'