Readers Write

Northern Advocate, 22 February 1939, Page 6

Readers Write

[Readers are invited to send letters l for publication in this Column, i A letter shoidd be written in ink j on one side of the paper, and ] must bear the name of the writer ,3 not necessarily for publication, | but as a Guarantee of good faith.] j In your paper of the 15th inst, ] “Sabbatarian” makes a sweeping at- 1 tack on those who do not keep the i Sabbath in the way! he thinks they j should. When your! correspondent writes j of his “conscience being distorted and 1 em'aged,” by other people’s so-called ■ “Sabbath-breaking,” such as playing' games on Sunday etc., he is apparent-' ly moved by the same spirit which' caused the leaders of the church toi burn John Huss alive and to dig up \ and burn the bones pf John Wycliffe | after his death, because these men \ dared to think for themselves on reli- i gibus matters. ' I would like to challenge “Sabba-[ tarian,” firstly, to state whether he - believes that the brutal and primi-! five laws of the Old Testament should | be obeyed today; secondly, to show what connection, if any, the Sabbath of the Old Testament has with the! Christian Sunday; thirdly, if he has a Bible, to quote one single sentence from it which suggests that the first day of the week, that is, Sunday, should be kept as the Sabbath of Judaism; fourthly, to show, by signing his own name, that he really believes what he writes and is not merely pulling our legs.— D. I. MACLEAN, Waipu. With Fitness Week here, and the wellbeing of our young people in our [thoughts, may I plead for a united effort ,on the part of parents to insist on proper conditions for the mistresses and girls at the High School? We can no longer plead that we dre unaware of the fact that the classrooms are shockingly overcrowded and poorly ventilated, that the whole building is out of date and quite inadequate for the increasing number of girls on the High School roll. The blame for these wrong conditions remits primarily with the parents who have’, for far too long ia period, acquiesced in this state of affairs.

SABBATH OBSERVANCE

CONDITIONS AT. GIRLS' SCHOOL.

The Government is evidently not fully alive to the urgent need for action, and the Board of Governors and the headmaster require the united backing of the parents to get some r thing done Without further delay. It is, after all, for the parents to as-' certain that their daughters are spending their days in proper and wholesome surroundings. The task of the women teachers is made unreasonably burdensome through the overcrowding and lack of facilities. We cannot expect our High School girls to be proud of their' buildings, or to take a pride in keeping their classrooms fresh and attractive. Girls are particularly sensitive to their surroundings, and it is difficult to k;eep their minds filled with “whatsoever things are pure,” and “lovely," and “of good report,” when the atmosphere in which they live does not measure up to that standard.

A further aspect of the question is the fact that many visitors are shocked to compare the Boys’ School with the Girls’ School. We certainly want our boys, too, to have the best conditions available, but it is a British tradition of long standing that womenfolk receive first consideration in the matter of comfort.

/t comes, I say, as a? shock to find the boys with all modern facilities and a spacious and dignified building, while the womenfolk are “roughing it” in every sense of the word, both in the school and in the hostel. We know that better things are ahead of them, but may I stress the point that, as parents, we tare at fault if we continue a day longer than is necessary to acquiesce in these altogether wrong conditions.—“A PARENT.”