The Hawera Star FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1927. OPEN-AIR SCHOOLS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 20 May 1927, Page 4

The Hawera Star

FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1927. OPEN-AIR SCHOOLS.

Delivered every evening by 5 o'olook in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa £ltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Alt»n. Hurlcyville, Patea, Waveriey, Mokoia Whakamara, Ohangai, Meremere. Frasei Road and Ararata

The Open-Air Schools’ League of Canterbury, the pioneer of the movement favouring the building of all new schools on the open-air principle, has been taking advantage of the visit of the Minister of Education to the South Island to bring before him its claims, and it has found the Hon. Mr Wright sympathetic. Represented on the deputation which, waited on the Minister were the medical and teaching professions, and representatives of school committees, and they ha.l no difficulty, in view of the success which has attended the experiments already made in Christchurch, in making out a good case for the type of school they favour. The benefits derived by the children who were fortunate enough'to attend the few open-air schools in existence were emphasised by the deputation, the members of which referred to the advantages to be gained by growing children who spend their five hours a day in rooms which wore designed to catch the sunlight, were ventilated on modern lines, and were free of over-crowding. The deputation was aware that it had the Minister’s sympathy, but it made an appeal to him to assist the League in obtaining the sympathy of Education Boards, and asked that it be supplied with a list of the works to be undertaken by boards in order that the League might do something towards creating a state of mind among parents favourable to the open-air plan. Prejudice against the new idea, among boards and parents, the League is finding the biggest obstacle to its work, and its representatives informed the' Minister that he could do a great deal to help the project the League has at heart If he would ‘ ‘ drop a helpful word in going round the country.” The Minister, in the course of his reply, said that though the League might not be making the progress it would like to make, it was doing very well, and he mentioned that its propaganda had spread to Taranaki, where, in some districts, there was a demand for open-air schools. He praised the part the Rotary Club had played in helping to establish an openair school for experimental and propaganda purposes, and said that the success which had attended the experiment made at Fendalton, one of the Christchurch suburban schools, had aroused interest throughout New Zealand, However, Mr Wright went on to state, most people were conservatives at heart and objected to innovations on the grounds that what was good enough for their grandfathers was good enough for them. He also stated that he had to tread warily, as education boards w r ero keenly alive to their privileges, and he could not over-ride their decisions. He had no objection to the League being given a list of projected works, but he could do no more than recommend that the Canterbury Board meet the wishes of the League in this respect. This statement by the Minister is interesting in view of the experiences of committees in South Taranaki in connection with the open-air school question. The prejudice which has been referred to in the South as one of the main obstacles to be overcome lias already been swept away to a large extent here, so far as the Hawera Main School is concerned, but the committee received little satisfaction when it made an application that the rebuilding of the condemned school should be carried out on open-air lines. Its arguments in favour of the open-air type of school —not the least of which is the lower cost, of building—were ■ at first listened to with sympathy, and the plans were at one stage of the negotiations approved, but later the proposal to adopt the open-air type was rejected in its entirely, and the committee lias, it seems, never received any satisfactory .

reason for the later attitude taken up by the authorities. All hope of obtaining approval of the plans for an openair school has been abandoned locally, but now that the committee and the parents are again ‘‘ on the warpath ’ ’ and reiterating their demand for the reinstatement of their school on the grounds that its health record is one of the worst in the Dominion, it would seem that the time is also ripe for reopening the question of erecting the new buildings on the lines which have proved their worth wherever they have been adopted. The Minister states that the decision rests with the board; it has been stated by Hawera committeemen that the Taranaki Board was in sympathy with their desire that the new Hawera School should be of the open-air type, but that the scheme was quashed by the Department. It would be at least interesting, and perhaps beneficial to the cause of open-air schools, if another attempt were made to ascertain the real reason of the deadlock.