DEFENCE OF CHILDREN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 14 July 1925, Page 5

DEFENCE OF CHILDREN

EVIDENCE AT OUR SCHOOLS

UNCLEAN LANGUAGE RARE

GOOD INFLUENCES AT WORK The conditions at the Auckland schools and among t'he poorer classes, where our social workers are busy, do not bear out the opinion expressed by ('anon Percival James, and published in '1 he Mail last- week, that the standards of morality of our voting have seriousls doetthed.

.Asked by a Star reporter if he had ever come across any sickening filth talked among the boys and girls, the Rev. Jasper (.’aider answered: "Rubbish. how could I? If it is done—but I am not in a position to give an opinion—it is surely done in secret, and not. before a minister.”

Pressed for his opinion, be was most emphatic. Nobody could possibly know this unless, perhaps. from hearsay, which was very unreliable. Personally he had frequently encountered some of the Jess harmful cuss-words, but ho was modern enough not to worry unduly about these. Blasphemy and unclean talk, however, he most strongly deprecated. From time immemorial he believed that boys and girls had indulged in the pernicious habit of telling risky stones. This was a ity. Nothing undermined the sacroiluess of intimate and serious tilings so much as making jokes about them. The smutty or suggestive joke did far more harm than twenty broad-minded novels. When these tilings were treated seriously no harm was done; but to speak of sexual and other sacred matters flippantly was a pernicious practice. A number of headmasters of city schools denied that the boys and girls used filthy talk hi the playgrounds; and at a school in City West, which was in a densely populated area, where the type of home was probably that, referred to by the Co non. it-was the headmaster had come across a case of parental neglect.

FEW CASES OF NEGLECT ‘‘To find a child neglected at home is a very rare thing,” he said, ‘‘and we see very little absolute indifference, on the part of parents to the bodily and mental welfare of their children.” His school had a. roll-call of over five hundred. In the classroom he showed the children well dressed and decidcly well cared for in their appearance, with neatly-cut hair, trimmed finger nails, and warmly, though not expensively, clothed. Many of the boys had their sleeves rolled up, and were without boots and stockings, but their clothes gave no grounds for suspecting neglect in the home, and they had a most 'healthy and bright appearance. The windows were open, and vases of flowers stood on the window sills. The flowers were seen in all the rooms visited, and were brought regularly from home by the children. Some of the boys and girls had flower gardens at home; others grew vegetables.

Everywhere at the school was the appearance of tidiness; all the waste in the shelter shed was carefully put intoa receptacle, and the attention that the children paid to the orderly arrangement of their hats and coats in t'he school corridors would have been a good object to many of their elders. No paper was seen lying about, as so often at Albert Rack after folk had lunched there during the mid-day recess; and the headmaster remarked that the children had become so accustomed to careful habits that reminders from the teachers were seldom needed.

SCHOOL HABITS AT HOME ‘T feel sure that they carry these habits into their homes." lie continued. Then he showed a busy troop of senior boys working with spades and go-carts at the back of the school. They were cleaning away the grass and rubbish and digging up the area to plant in lawn. "They do this quite voluntarily,” he explained. “We have not asked them to work during their play hours; but they are anxious to improve their playground, and, of course, we encourage them. They have planted the front of the school in lawn and flower-beds, and when they have finished this p/ece they intend to dig up the ground on the south side."

Theirs was a difficult piece of work, as tile area was a steeply-sloping clay hank that had to ho arranged in terraces and covered with a layer of black soil in which to plant the grass, but they worked with a will, and the array of go-carts quickly removed the unsightly rubbish. As far as one could toil, the boys were enjoying it as much as play, and. when the hell went, their spades were cleaned and locked up in the tool-shed.

“Some of them have the civic spirit very well developed,” commented the headmaster, with a laugh. “They have built the go-carts at home, and bring them to school to help them in their work. They have a hatred of dirt at school, and I know it must he the same in their homes. A few of the hoys bring spades as well, because we have not enough at the school. They are manly and self-reliant, too; and 1 have never had an instance of insubordination. Some time ago two hoys brought a little fellow to me for using had language, hut when they explained to me what the language was (it was notlmig serious, though), of course, I admonished tlie hoy.”

BOYS TELL HUMOROUS STORIES

Almost every dinner hour the headmaster would walk around the playground. and t'tfb teachers were also careful to keep an eye on the children, hut cases of had language were extreme Iv rare.

There, was a chorus of “good morning sir.” when the headmaster entered ;

das?, room and the members’of a boys’ class ansv o.od up promptly when questioned wl:r hfeey did at home. Some of the lads h d i land of humorous stories and anecdote® v/ith which they entertained the ■ : s It was indeed a contrast with the “smutty story” which people so much suspected in tlie minds of some children. “The moral outlook in Now Zealand is quite equal to that in England," eoinnn ntod tne headmaster, alter explain ing that he had personally investigated conditions there several years ago.

CANON JAMES REPLIES

NOT ATTACKING THE SCHOOLS

Canon James replied that what lie said was intended, firstly, as a warning to the mothers. He had no idea it was going to he reported in public, but lie was not sorry that had Happened. “1 was not particularly attacking tieschools,” he explained, “and least of all the headmasters and teachers, for they are a magnificent lot of people of whom New Zealand ought to tic proud l was speaking about what l know. 1 was not saying that* the schools were the hotbeds ot this sort of tiling, bid the instances that had come to my mind were of this talk amongst hoys and girls of the same schools, and. of course, boys and girls make friends chiefly from the members of their own schools. ”

Questioned whether lie considered the influences working to-day were making the situation worse and worse, the Canon answered emphatically. 'Acs.” He was not speaking only of children from what might he called the poorer homes. '’They are all exposed much more than they were to fearful tempta-

Hon. lie said. “We have heard much lately about sex precocity. I believe that is much more common than is generally supposed. I‘eople can see for themselves the immodesty among young people, in fact, modesty seems to have become rather an unpopular word, and wh'Te there is immodesty above the suffice, there is only too much reason ro fear immorality below. - 1.

My second "reason for saying that things are worse than they were is tHo decline of discipline in the homes. Tito home discipline of our grandfathers may have been too strict, hut there is a poiiit where liberty becomes license, and wo have reached it in many homes. I thmk when quite young girls are allowed out to roam at will at nigtits until late hours, without guardianship, and without being-warned l of the perils about them, if disaster follows, the parents alone are responsible.”