FRANK COMPARISONS

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 24 July 1935, Page 6

FRANK COMPARISONS

American Teachers’ . Views of New Zealand Pupils “SCHOOLGIRL COMPLEXIONS” “OURS LIPSTICK AND ROUGE” Some engaging observations on the school pupils of Wellington and a frank comparison with scholars of the United States were made by two American school teachers who, after a qharactertistic hustle round the schools of the capital city, went on in the Makura for Sydney yesterday in the course of a vacation holiday. They were Miss M. N. O’Connor, of Newark, New Jersey, and Miss E. M. ’VVaterman, of South Pasadena, California. Both are high school teachers. They helped each other out ih;:an interview. Neither would presume, as each put it. to compare the educational system of this country with their own on so fleeting a visit. They, went straight to the human factor. “I was deeply impressed with the ruggedness and the glowing health of your schoolgirls,” declared Miss O’Connor. “The complexions of your girls—they are just wonderful. Age for age of our high school girls, yours are very much better developed. Mentally they seem alert and bright.” As for tho boys, she continued, they gave the impression of being lean and wiry and perhaps smaller in stature than the average American of similar age. This might be due, however, to the very : strenuous sport iu which she understood all New Zealand boys took part as soon as they had learned to run. If Wellington’s school children were typical of the rest of the Dominion’s, she would say that our young people took life more seriously than the high school scholars of the United States.

SINCE THE DEPRESSION. “This is probably true of the eastern States.” interposed Miss Waterman, “but I think that the children of California do take their studies seriously—especially since the depression.” ' “Yes, I think ours, too, are getting back to the idea of working in recent years,” agreed her friend in modification. Returning to complexions, Miss O’Connor was emphatic that our schoolgirls were better looking than their American cousins. She denied that she was being diplomatic. “Your girls have Nature’s beauty —ours are all made up with cosmetics. Yours don’t seem to use them while at school. Our girls look theatrical; they are all done up with red lipstick and rouge. The only way to tell’if an American schoolgirl really has a complexion, is to see hor after her morning bath.” “That is not altogether true; of California,’’ Miss Waterman protested. Miss O’Connor went into details. “American girls from ,12 years upward tweeze their eyebrows, pencil their faces so as to alter their expressions and tint their fingernails. They copy the film stars, whose every foible they like to adopt.’ Miss Waterman admitted that the proximity of her high school to Hollywood did not diminish the difficulties of the dean to stamp out the cosmetic habit. Her strongest ally was the depression, which tended to reduce the expenditure by the girls on cosmetics. Before the slump it was hard to make the American scholar get down to serious study. They used to have their own automobiles standing in the college precincts and spent a lot of money on dress COLLEGE UNIFORMS. “And,” said this teacher, “that brings mo to the uniform which. I .taw at your colleges. How nice your boys and girls look in their uniforms. In most of our high, schools the young people wear ordinary dress, and the children of the less well-to-do parents suffer by comparison with the richer ones.”

“The depression has cured most or that,” said Miss Waterman; “the depression has clone good to the American school child.” “Don’t tell him that,” counselled her companion; “they will give us the rest of the English debts to pay.” Miss O’Connor teaches economics and sociology. Asked what the ordinary citizen of the United States thought of New. Zealand, if he had ever heard of it, Miss v> Connor replied that more was known of the Dominion in the last year or two than we might suppose. The Communists were telling the American public that New Zealand had a very good constitution ancl was quite socialistic in its legislation. Miss O’Connor mentioned that she had • been informed that there had been a time in New Zealand’s political history when the social legislation was a model for the world. “But,” she added, .“since I have been here 1 am told that lately it has not been so good. Is that so? She was assured that it- was all a matter of opinion.