SCHOOL PLAYING ARMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18278, 20 December 1922, Page 10

SCHOOL PLAYING ARMS.

GRAMMAR'S HANDICAP.

APPEAL FOR ASSISTANCE.

The difficulties surrounding the athletic side of the work of the Auckland Grammar School were referred to by Mr. J. W. Tibbs, in his final report as headniaatw of the school, which was made at the annual prize-giving last evening.

Mr. Tibbs stated that school games had been pursued during the year with much enthusiasm by masters as well as by boys, in spite of disadvantages. He supposed that this was the only one of the great schools of the Dominion that was not equipped with ample playing fields within the property of the school. They have plenty of space to meet all the requirements of the boys; but, while the school stood on a site which in every way was unrivalled, the nature of the ground was a hindrance to games, and actually a danger to the limbs of the boys. The board recognised the needs when the school was first moved to its present home, and levelled as much ground as its resources would then allow. Further extension was begun later, but had to be abandoned at the instance of the Education Department. It should be realised that no school games could bo played on the present ground, which was an admirable drill-ground and nothing more. The board had assisted the school to hire grounds in the Domain and at Remuera; but these were only a makeshift.

If the school was to hold its own in athletics among the schools of the Dominion, continued Mr. Tibbs, it must have proper playing fields around it. The present expedient involved much waste of time to those keen enough to go out to distant* grounds, and resulted in the greater number of the boys taking no part whatever in cricket and football, and missing the camaraderie as well as the moral and physical training of school games. If it were not for a good long row of five courts, their case would be desperate. The school was in such, sore need of assistance for its games, that he turned to old boys and parents. The school's eleven, said Mr. Tibbs, was not able this year to send a challenge for the Heathcote-Williams Cricket Shield Their cricket was suffering badly from the want of good pitches and from the deplorable state of the pitches in the Domain. But the school's fifteen had brought back tho Moascar Football Cap from Christchurch. This team's victory attracted a great deal more attention than a brilliant success in a public examination, or an academic disinction such as that recently won by F. A. Taylor, who had been elected to a studentship at Christchurch, Oxford. This was the second occasion on which an old boy of the school had won a seat on the governing body of a college in one of the two great English universities. The first was R. C. Maclaurin, who was a Fellow of St. j John's College, Cambridge. j