TUITION BY MAIL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22344, 15 February 1936, Page 10

TUITION BY MAIL

COURAGEOUS SCHOLARS GIRL WHO LOSt BOTH ARMS KEEN LADS OF THE OUTBACK ' [from our own correspondent] SYDNEY. Feb. 5 A remarkable feature of the New South Wales education system is the correspondence school, by means of which children ,in far outback areas, far frcn settlement, and children suffering severe physical handicaps are given a fair standard of tuition. The school is at Blackfriars, Sydney, and there 135 teachers labour to prepare lessons to be sent by post and to check answers to previous questions. Indeed the correspondence school is the largest in this State, with an enrolment for 1936 of 5388 primary and 241 secondary pupils. Its operations cxtqnd to the furthest parts of the State's border end the interior. / City and suburban scholars with all their advantages, perhaps little realise bow these children, .in the words of the headmaster, Mr. "W. Finigan, "miss the daily contact with the other children of their class, scattered as they *are in ones and twos, throughout the the wide country spaces and beyond." The "beyond" reached by this correspondence stretches as far as 120 miles inland from Broken Hill; out from Menindie; and to Moombooldool, via Temora, where a student has just secured a leaving certificate pass. All the five "correspondents" who sat for the intermediate got through. "We not, however," the headmaster explained, "have many sitting for the higher examinations because most of them have to finish their education with the cor- I respondent course and get to work. Victim oi Shark Attack Last year's pupils included Beryl Morrin, who lost both arms in a shark attack about two years ago. By means of a pencil held between her teeth, or between the stumps of her arms, she did her school work, which she hopes to do later with artificial hands. "H&c art work ser>t in' so far is excellent/j is the report. Then there is "Billy" HUaguire, of Sou,tli Wagga, who. obliged to use his' toes in place of two missing hands, writes letters with pen and ink on ordinary, paper, which, according to his tutor, "would do credit to one of equal years and full physical strength." Probably of the thousands who eagerly spanned the examination lists none received greater pleasure than Peter Fletcher, of Bullamacoo, bn the Lower Hawkesbury. Suffering from paralysis, he was allowed by the Education Department to dictate his answers. He passed. Another enthusiast iu his schooling is Donald Dansey, of Maryville, Newcastle, who, deprived of the use of his hands, does his work thoroughly, .writing with his left foot, "plodding on under patient and loving supervision." Miles from Neighbours Graphic sidelights are given by teachers Of some of those morb fortunately placed physically, who had to "rough" it in the outback. Thirty-five miles from White Cliffs iu the far north-west cojuer of the State, with the nearest neighbour 14 miles away, one boy, lessons done, diligently helps on the farm. Once in every three months he visits the village. His father has lost a leg, so he "helps him watch the sheep, bring in the horses, and blow the bellows when there is blacksmithing to be done." Two others, boy and girl, living in £ bark house on an unimproved selection, with no father, do the farming with their mother. Groceries have to be carried for five miles up a mountain. Away at Coulsen's Creek is one of nine children living in a hut, who has to walk seven miles for his correspondence papers. And not the least hardworking little miss is a pupil near Wheeo, who, herself a partial invalid, and the eldest in a family of nine, helpß in the household and on the farm, besides supervising the school work of her brothers and sisters.