SCHOOL RUGBY.

Northern Advocate, 30 July 1924, Page 4

SCHOOL RUGBY.

The principal of the Whangarei High School is to be congratulated on the institution of an annual Rugby Football Tournament in which the School Fifteen will take part. The scheme, which was received with approval last night by the Board of Governors, contemplates a regular competition for three schools — Mount Albert Grammar School (Auckland), Hamilton High School, and Whangarei High School. Each team will have to travel from home two years out of three, but it is a particularly good feature of the scheme that tho journeys will not be long ones and the whole tournament will not occupy a great deal of time. This year the Whangarei boys are to go to Auckland, and their absence will only be a matter of days. The institution of the competition will give the Whangarei High School, and indeed all those who are in any way associated with it, a fresh interest in a fine game; To the representatives of the school who are chosen to travel it will mean an opportunity to rub shoulders with boys of their own age living in larger centres, and that will be an experience that will prove beneficial. Not only will it do them good as footballers, but it will broaden their general outlook, teach them something about schools other than their own, and increase their zeal for the honour of their own school. The old-standing competition in which Christ's College (Christchurch), Wellington College, and Wanganui Collegiate School meet annually, the later-established tourney of the Christchurch, Tbnaru, Otago, and Southland High Schools, and other annual meetings of the kind are' widely recognised as important factors in the development of the school spirit that is so fine a feature of secondary school life. While the pupils of a large school and a good, school —we can safely include the Whangarei High School in this category —naturally learn to take a pride in the institution to which they belong, they perhaps do not fully appreciate all that their school means to them until they have opportunities of comparing it with other schools. Aa annual football tourna-

ment on the lines instituted by Mr Charters affords a particularly favourable opportunity of this kind. Whangarei's participation in an annual contest with worthy opponents signifies in a sense the elevation of the High School to a new status, and ono that will be a source of pride and inspiration to all associated with the school.