VISITOR'S ACT

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 94, 22 April 1935, Page 8

VISITOR'S ACT

WILFUL DAMAGE

CAR WINDSCREEN SMASHED

Money supplied to Sidney Cyphus Frampton, aged 34, a'labourer, to pay'his expenses in coming from Hunterville to Wellington for^a conference will have to be used to pay for the damage done by him to a car windscreen. The circumstances of the case were related by Sub-Inspector C. E. Eoach in the Magistrate's Court today, when Frampton pleaded guilty to wilfully damaging a car windscreen valued at £7 10s, the property of A. MacGregor. Messrs. T. H. Coltman and W. H. Coy, J.P.s., were on the bench. At about 7.10 p.m. yesterday, said the sub-inspector, Frampton was standing on the footpath near the De Luxe Theatre, and as a car passed he struck its windscreen with a walking stick and smashed it. He ran away, but the motorist gave chase and held him until the police arrived. Nothing was known against Frampton, who had been drinking but was not drunk. He told the constable that his act was the result of a religious argument, but there had been no argument at all. The man in the car was merely driving past. /Frampton told the Court that he had come down from Hunterville and, having met an old friend, did something he did not usually do—indulged in_ spirits. "I have absolutely no recollection at all of what happened," he said. "I was surprised when I woke up and found where 1 was." Mr. Coy: You should have had a little more sense. Framptou: Yes. I can't understand it stall. . ' The Bench intimated that the defendant would have to make good the damage, whereupon he asked for time to pay.. Sub-Inspector Roach objected, saying that Frampton had the money in his possession. The defendant replied that thnt money was to pay his expenses in attending a conference here. He was convicted and ordered to make good the damage, and was not allowed time to pay. ( work: Art, craft, woodwork, or cookery. "In our opinion the abolition of the competency certificate will remove what has been'a most serious obstacle to proper understanding by the public of the modern trend in education—viz., that the natural ability of the pupil is the line along which he should be educated. The proficiency certificate has loomed too large on the educational horizon. This certificate has been 'fashionable' and the pupil who attained .a pass for Standard VI which entitled him to a competency certificate was deemed offhand to be a failure by the general public and by employers. The public are used to the name proficiency certificate, and for this reason it should be retained as your committee feels certain that the suggested alteration in the awarding of the proficiency certificate will sweep away the abuses which crept in through a misunderstanding of the position by the public. It is felt that as long as there are two certificates in the one examination, the, lower one will never be readily acceptable. ATTAINMENT MARK. "If any new scheme is introduced something should be done to prevent the economic waste that has resulted from too many pupils entering on an academic course for which they are unsuited, merely to satisfy' parents' vanity, or to find that they are misfits and to drop it to enter other courses or pursuits. If, however, the certificate were marked A, B, C, or D against the various subjects, on the basis of the inspector's examination in conjunction with the headmaster's recommendations, then a principal of a secondary or a technical high school could. see at a glance what particular course a child was best suited for and place him accordingly.. Even more readily an employer would be able to choose from a batch of applicants the most suitable child for a given position. "The proceedings suggested would suit the new intermediate schools, whether the present two-year course is continued or. a three-year course instituted. If the two-year course is in operation pupils with academic claims should proceed to an academic course at a secondary school and others to a commercial course at high or technical schools."