SCHOOLBOYS' TOUR

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 9, 12 January 1938, Page 8

SCHOOLBOYS' TOUR

EDUCATIVE VALUE

ADVANCE AGENT ARRIVES

The need for strengthening the ties of Empire by giving constituent nations a knowledge of the lives and thoughts of sister Dominions was stressed by Lord Malcolm DouglasHamilton, the advance agent for the Dominion tour of British public schoolboys, who arrived in Wellington yesterday. The party, which will ■ comprise representatives from most of the big public schools, will arrive in New Zealand on February 28 and will stay for six weeks. Lord Douglas-Hamilton said that shortness of time will prohibit the visiting of many places that would, normally be seen. ■

Education in its widest sense was the object of the tour, said Lord DouglasHamilton. Coming as it did towards the end of the boys' school days, it afforded an unrivalled opportunity for broadening their outlook and. for acquiring a sense of proportion. Moreover, it presented for learning at first hand much of the greatest importance which could otherwise be acquired only indifferently from books. An appreciation of the resources of the Empire, a sympathy with the problems of their kinsmen which personal contacts alone could afford, and an understanding of Imperial history, geography, politics, and economics could not fail to be of enormous benefit to the young men, some of whom might shortly be entering Parliament or the Government Service, and others the ever-widening fields covered by modern business. But all of them were, it was hoped, going to be active members of the British Empire.

The party was anxious to see something of the lives of the people of the Dominion, to see how they lived, thought, worked, and learned. It was hoped that members of the party would have the opportunity of living on farms for periods of a few days at a time so that they might carry away with them some idea of the work upon which the main wealth of New Zealand was based. They also looked forward to visiting some of the famous schools of New Zealand, and they were curious to compare the life of a New Zealand schoolboy with their own. They were keen to make the acquaintance of the Maori, the history of whose tribes read to Englishmen rather like the story of the Scottish clans—loyal co-opera-tion following on bitter fighting, until, as the Scottish had done about one hundred years earlier, the Maoris became useful members of the British Empire. They would attempt to see fewer places, and to see them more thoroughly, rather than rushing visits that would leave only blurred recollections.

The tour will be the twentieth arranged by the Empire Schools Tour Committee and the third to visit New Zealand. The High Commissioner for New Zealand (Mr. W. J. Jordan) is taking a great interest in the 1938 tour, and he and Mr. C. B. Burdekin have given much help. The committee was formed in April of 1927.