OLD HAWERA SCHOOL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 22 May 1925, Page 4

OLD HAWERA SCHOOL.

AN EARLY MASTER

ELT.HAM LADY’S RECOLLECTIONS

(To the Editor.)

Sir,--In reference to the paragraph in last night’s issue of the Star re pupils of the old schoop days receiving uiedaLs for good attendance, I should like to say that .i n the earlier days little Nellie Cow per (Mrs. !>'. .Baker, New Plymouth) won a prize, I think more than once, for the. best record of school attendance. She and her sisters walked every day for years to and from school to their father’s farm on the other side of the little native settlement of Ngatiri, on the TawhitiArarata Hoad, and the younger of the three won the prize for hot having missed a single day a record suiel\ for a year, under the circumstances. I have been wondering why , among the very interesting list of teachers no mention has been made of Mr. D. Thomson, who was headmaster during 1878, just before the appointment of Mr. A. Mair. Air. Thomson was a very r highly educated Scotsman, and a good classical scholar. He was evidently one of’ the large class of men- who had seen “better days,” and had bad a University- education and possessed a. wonderful sense of humour. I think the pupils were much attached to Mr. Thomson, though he may have only been here a short time. He was the master in charge when ray family and those of our friends who arrived in ’7B went to school. One occurrence stands out in our memories about Mr, Thomson, which showed his ability and unconventional methods of teaching. He translated that fine old Christmas hymn “Adiste Fidelis,” into its original Latin, and picked a choir of. his elder pupils to sing it at the annua, school concert, “greatly to the scandalisation ©f some of the public, who evidently looked with suspicion o n the ‘dead’ languages.” I have the hymn book with his translation. —I am, etc., M. E. WILSON. “Biverbank,” Eltham.