TRAINING COLLEGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19658, 9 June 1927, Page 14

TRAINING COLLEGE.

LACK OF PLAYING AREAS. LARGE GROUNDS UNSUBDUED. THE QUESTION OF FINANCE. « Attention to disadvantages under which the Teachers' Training Collage at present carries on its activities was directed by a correspondent in the Herald yesterday. Investigation on the spot by a reporter certainly showed good basis for the assertion that the work of the college is seriously hampered for lack of funds. The building itself, which cost in the vicinity of £50,000, leaves little if anything to be desired. It is adequately and conveniently fitted in evefy respect and gives ample accommodation for the 425 students attendance. The frontage of the building is just over 100 yds. in length, and provision has been made for the addition at a later period of two large wings, one containing a general assembly hall and the other being specially for women. The general appearance of the building has attracted some unfavourable criticism, but, as the principal, Mr. H. G. Cousins, points out, the architect could but do his best with the funds at his disposal, which were by no means unlimited. Mr. Cousins is confident, too, that the brickwork will improve in attractiveness as it mellows with age. It is not the building that restricts the work, but the lack of adequate grounds about it for the expenditure of the surplus energy of over 400 healthy, vigorous young people. The college has an area of no less than 27 acres attached to it, but this is so rough and-intractable in character that as yet only a very small portion of it has been subdued to any kind of usefulness. The rest is a forbidding waste of pits and quarries and rocky mounds, overgrown with gorse and weeds. The cost of reducing this to a form in which it can be used for sports is very heavy, as may be gathered from the fact that some £3600 was spent in levelling the five acres in the immediate vicinity of the building. Importance of Exercjjse. This matter of playing grounds for the 6tudents is of more vital concern than might at first sight appear. The viceprincipal. Mr. D. M. Rae, is most emphatic on this point. "We cannot do effective work in this institution," ho said, "without proper scope for physical training. All educational institutions now-a-days recognise the supreme importance of physical training." Most of the students were going out to the schools of the province to put physical education in its widest aspect on a reasonable basis there. A policy that did not give them full scope for physical training during their own training was most shortsighted. Take such a game as Rugby. How could a master properly undertake the fostering of that in his school if he had not had proper facilities for practising it himself ? In making any comparison between the University College and the Training College it must be remembered that those at the Training College are all fujl-time students, and that it is of the utmost importance to develop a corporate college life and spirit. In Mi'. Rae s opinion, that cannot possibly be done without providing in the first place better playinggrounds and facilities for the proper discharge of - physical energy. The space now available is greatly overcrowded on any fine day. Perhaps the most immediate need is for tenuis courts, of which the students had four at Weilesley Street. Plans have been made for five chip courts, but the estimated cost is about £6OO, and this, so far, has proved, an insurmountable obstacle. Mr. Cousins suggested some time ago that a considerable saving might be effected if the Education Board provided the material and the students did the work under expert supervision, but nothing came of the suggestion. Students Help Themselves. The students have shown their keenness by devoting a great deal of their time to improvement of the grounds, but there is no caretaker for the grounds, and the work of maintaining them even in their present condition does not allow of a great deal of progress being made. Mr. Cousins has attractive plans made out some three yeai's ago for the future development of the grounds. These include a hockey ground and a Rugby football ground and a quarter-mile running track, almost in front of the college, a second hockey field on a small level piece near Gillies Avenue, three model country schools and a men's open-air swimming pool. He admits frankly it would be unreasonable to expect to have such an oxpensive area put in order very quickly, but at the same timo he is disappointed that no grafts for the grounds are coming forward, and ho feels the tennis couits ought to have been prepared by this time. "I do''not think the authorities vrealise how essential it is to the real happy life of the college that there should be all sorts of physical exercises," Mr. Cousins College Library Needed. The community has every reason to be proud of the work done in its Training College and of the records of tho students who have passed through, and it is clear the present sad lack of room for physical exercise offers scope for most acceptable assistance from any citizen in a position to give it. The whole dimculty is a matter of finance. Another direction in which private generosity might be exercised with gratw fying results is the colloge library. At the present time this spacious and attractive room contains only about 1500 books, many of which are of little practical value and some of which are quite out of date. In these days, when self-education and the proper use of books loom so large in methods of education, an adequate library is more than ever essential. And yet the college has rio funds for this purpose. The £7OO allowed for incidental expenses is absorbed by the salaries of caretaker and office clerk and many other necessary items. An adequate library would foster the social spirit of the institution and would add to both the pleasure and the profit of students in a very marked degree.