Local and General

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 16 August 1934, Page 4

Local and General

For failing to prevent her five cows and two calves from trespassing on riie railway at Face a, Veronica nucy I'oingdestre was convicted and lined £T by Mr J. H. Salmon, S.M., in the JL'atea magistrate’s court yesterday. An additional grant of £4OOO lias been made by the Education Department for school maintenance, and ot this amount the share of the Taranaki Education Board is approximately £240.

A grant of 5/- per week will be made by the Education Department as boarding allowance for children requiring accommodation away from home to attend a primary school, stated a letter from the department received at yesterday’s monthly meeting of the board in New Plymouth.

According to advice received from the Education Department at yesterday’s meeting of the Taranaki Education ..Board, teachers may receive their salaries before the term holidays which begin on Saturday. Under the previous regulations the salaries were paid at the end of the month.

Pleading guilty in the Patea Magistrate’s Court yesterday, James Frederick Boyce was convicted and ordered to. pay costs only for ruling a jnotoi cycle at -Kakaraniea-. on May 27. last without . being, the. holder _of .'a 'driver s license. The fact that defendant did not "have ui license was revealed when he met with an accident and suffered a broken leg in collision with a car. Boyce, 1 who only recently was discharged from the Patea liospitaJ, appeared in 001114) with a leg swathed in panda ges.

Japanese biscuits have arrived in New Zealand, but there is no immediate prospect of their sale. They are apparently in the category of manufactures in which Japan cannot compete with white producers. of the biscuits have been sent to New Zealand, and Dominion manufacturers have found that they are able to make similar biscuits of a better quality at a lower price. The biscuits are of two sorts ,a kind of superwine and a biscuit with a confection on the top, and they are identical in design . with a well-known English make, even the name on them being copied. Discussing the problem of backward children, a, prominent Taranaki headmaster with long years of experience points out that each year there are certain puipils who have to be promoted, not because they have passed the necessary examination test, but on account of their age. No child could be kept back in a class where he would be three or perhaps four years older than the rest and retain his self-respect. It was not so much a case of teaching the particular subjects as developing general intelligence, and once this came the other followed. This was often the case with children who for some reason or other commenced their school life late. “Of course we have many cases of youngsters making marvellous progress early and then failing to fulfil their promise,” 'he said, “hut it takes all soi-ts to make up a school.” An explanation of why he always spoke from notes was given by Mr A. K. Anderson, retiring headmaster of St. Andrew’s College, at a farewell gathering, reports the “Christchurch Times. 1 ” In asking those present to forgive him for using notes in his roplv, Mr Anderson said that 14 years ago at his first prize-giving at the college he was on the platform with the members of the' board of governors, comprising members of the Church and laymen, seated behind him. As all headmasters knew, prize night was a tiring affair, hut being young and fresh then lie decided to make his remarks without the aid of notes. _At the time he was speaking of the ideals of St. Andrew’s boys, and said that the college “did not want or desire to, turn out parsons or esslesiastical prigs.*’ One of the newspapers had speedily picked upon the remark, and had said that certain members of the board of governors must have felt “out of . it.” “Of course I did not mean to infer that members of the board deserved the description,” concluded Mr Anderson, ‘but it was one of those slips a speaker is apt to make in a hurry, and since then 1 have always used notes.”

“Probation is no use in the case of native youths,” observed Mr Justice Reed in the 'Supreme Court at Napier, when refusing to comply with a suggestion that a young Maori, being sentenced for breaking and entering, should be admitted to probation. “They do not appreciate it,” his Honour went on, “and they cause a lot of trouble to probation officers. My experience has been that if one gives a Maori youth probation he goes back to the kainga thinking that he has scored over the Government. He believes that they do not want to put him in gaol, and that therefore he has had a victory over the police.”