"SENSE OF DUTY"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 117, 20 May 1939, Page 23

"SENSE OF DUTY"

SECONDARY SCHOOL.

TEACHERS

"Does the average secondary school Rugby football coach perform his duties because he is keen and takes an interest in the schoolboys and their Rugby or because he has a sense of duty?" might have provided the topic for a lengthy debate at a recent meeting of the management committee of the Wellington Rugby Union.

The matter was brought up by Mr. H. A. Heron, secretary of the Wellington Secondary Schools Rugby Association, who was making his first appearance on the committee, and as was mentioned before it might have been debated at length, had not the chairman (Mr. J. N. Millard) suggested that the matter should be dropped for the time being, anyway. Mr. Heron quite definitely stated that in some cases— and he could bring proof if need be —schoolmasters were coaching teams purely out of a sense of duty. Mr. Millard had other opinions.

And then when the discussion looked like becoming interesting it stopped abruptly. As a matter of fact, Mr. Heron brought the question up more or less casually; and it is doubtful whether the management committee could do a very great deal in improving matters, even if there is something in what Mr.- Heron says. Anyway it raises a rather, interesting point.

If there are masters coaching teams purely out of duty to the school, etc., it seems that there might be an adverse effect on the boys' play. Schoolboys are pretty discerning, and it wouldn't take them long to see whether the coach was greatly interested in them or not.

It is obvious that it must be the exception rather than the rule but even in isolated cases it is a bad thing.