The Times TUESDAY, JULY 26, 1938. Aids to Education

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 174, 26 July 1938, Page 6

The Times TUESDAY, JULY 26, 1938. Aids to Education

The opening of the new assembly hall at the Palmerston North Girls’ High School yesterday marks the realisation of a long-cherished dream and the consummation of a fine co-opera-tive effort on the part of the administrative authorities, teaching staff, scholars and parents. The attractive and very convenient hall practically completes the building programme of the school and makes it now one of the most modern educational blocks in the Dominion, where the girls of both city and district may be assured of receiving an all-round cultural training for their life’s work in the most congenial surroundings. Palmerston North, thanks to the wise administration, persistency and foresight of the High Schools’ Board of Governors, has now three secondary educational institutions hardly rivalled for a city of its size in New Zealand, and parents anxious for the future of their children should feel that they owe a debt of gratitude to those men and women who, over a long period of years, have without pecuniary reward given so much of their time and ability to the work of secondary education administration. For some years past those in. control of the Education Department of the Dominion adopted the attitude that an assembly hall was not so essential an adjunct to a secondary school as to warrant its erection out of the public funds, and, particularly in the case of the Palmerston North Girls’ High School, demanded that a considerable portion of the money required should be raised by the staff and parents. While such a policy may be open to criticism, it has the virtue of giving parents a much closer interest in the work of their children’s education. The ideal of a free education system from the primary school to the university, admirable as it is, has a tendency to cut parents off too completely from contact with the work of the schools, and the more comprehensive the realisation of the ideal, the less there is left for the parent to do. In Palmerston North, however, the Parents’ Associations of the three secondary schools have had ample opportunity of keeping in close touch with the work of the institutions, and impressive monuments to their enthusiasm and interest are to be seen in such fine buildings as the assembly halls and swimming baths, and also in the fine school libraries. The opening of the girls’ assembly hall yesterday serves also as a reminder of the unselfish and loyal co-operation of the various principals and members of the staff without whose enthusiastic co-operation the building would never have been brought into being. Its completion is as much a tribute to their unflagging interest in their work and their deep concern for the welfare of the students as it is to the good work of the board and the Parents’ Association.