VISIT TO RUSSIA

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 55, 6 March 1937, Page 19

VISIT TO RUSSIA

AUCKLAND HEADMISTRESS

After a year's leave of absence Miss A. L. Loudon, headmistress of the Epsom Girls' Grammar School has returned to Auckland, states the "New Zealand Herald." Miss Loudon travelled extensively throughout Great Britain, where she visited a number of leading girls' secondary schools. She also spent a fortnight in Russia with a party of members of the Federation of University Women.

"New Zealand schools compare, on the whole, very satisfactorily with those of England and Scotland," stated Miss Loudon. "Naturally, however, they differ in certain aspects. There is. for instance, a greater diversity ot courses in girls' secondary schools in England and Scotland and more scope to qualify the girls for after life." This was due partly to more liberal staffing snd partly to the greater amount of sectional work, such as classics, music, and secretarial courses, Miss Loudon added. In this respect the upper ranks of girls' secondary schools were ahead of New Zealand. Greek, Latin, and mathematics were widely taught and German also figured on nearly all such schools' curricula. The standard of French was also higher from the point of view of the spoken language. Miss Loudon was particularly impressed with the girls' secondary schools in Scotland, where work in classics and mathematics reached a very high standard, while the schools were also well equipped for the teacning of history and geography. In the teaching of domestic science, however, New Zealand schools were well in advance of those of both England and Scotland. Science was a much wider course in those two countries than in the Dominion, and biology was an allimportant subject under this section. The standard of physical training was excellent and British schools were notable for the amount of apparatus work which was included in the physical training classes. The visit to Russia was one of the high-lights of Miss Loudon's tour, and during her short stay there she acquired valuable information and an insight into the workings of the Russian mind. The women there held a very important place in the community, and apart from being prominent in many of the professions, such as medicine, were appointed in many cases to high executive positions. A woman was head of the Bureau of Marriage and Divorce, at which institution Miss Loudon witnessed several divorces and marriages in the course of one hour. Another woman was head of. a big school of 900 pupils of both sexes and had under her a large staff of both men and women. For this she obtained a reasonably good salary. : , The people in Russia were poorly dressed, but contented. Poverty or squalor were not seen among the children in the schools, and they seemed bright and intelligent. A feature of Miss Loudon's visit to Russia was the Drama Festival in Moscow. She was very impressed with the quality of the acting of the Russian people, particularly in a Tchaikowsky- opera which she witnessed, while the artistic picture galleries, the Museum of Western Arts in Moscow, in which was housed some of the finest modern French paintings in the world, and the Museum of the Revolution, in which were to be seen relics of Russia's revolutionary history, were other points of interest in the tour.