TRAVELS FOR EXPERIENCE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7039, 29 January 1910, Page 14

TRAVELS FOR EXPERIENCE.

SCHOOLMISTRESS WANTS TO SEE NEW ZEALAND. WHY SHE IS GOING. tbom ouii special correspondent. LONDON, December 10. A headmistress under the VVillesdeu Education Committee has just been grunted leave of absence to visit New Zealand and Australia on the grourd that the experience gained by foreign travel will add to her value as a teacher. r . I asked the lady in question, Miss Alice Greening, what had turned her thoughts towards New Zealand, and m what direction sho had hoped particularly to benefit by her travels at the Antipodes. . „ ''l have, nl friends in New Zealand, said Miss Greening though I hope to meet in, Christchurch a cousin who loft here a year ago but whom I have never "When visiting the Franco-British Exhibition last year I was astanisred to find how little I know of our great colonies of Australia and New Zealand, and my frequent visits in quest of knowledge not only of the country but of the characters of the colonials, promoted a desire to visit these countries and to see things for myself. I particularly wish to see tho people I met in the exhibition in their natural' enviroment, and to notice what effect tho change of country has on the formation of colonial character.

"The report of your Inspector General of Schools, Mr. Hogbeii, at the International Conference on moral instruction and training: in sonools, together with tho many interesting conversations I nave had with that authority on child character, the Rev. A. C Hoggins, late of Christchurch, has excited my interest and augmented the great desire to visit jny brothers at the Antipodes. FIVEI MONTHS' TOUR. "It was with the greatest difficulty that I was able to obtain the necessary leave, and I know that- five months is all too short for all I hope to accomplish. -■•' "Aocording to present arrangements I leave Marseilles in the "Orvieto" at Easter, returning from Sydney July 9th. I am booking to Melbourne, and from there intend to make arrangements for a circular . trip to North Island and Auokland and back. to Melbourne via Eockhampton and Sydney. "I have many friends in England, as I was an organising teacher for tho County of Lincolnshire, and have held headships in Surrey and "Willesden, and they are very interested in what they consider an enterprising excursion. ''l am going alone, as I wish to have unfettered intercourse with colonials and to absorb what I can of the spirit of their life in these new lands. "Last June Mr Piper, the well-known mining engineer of Christchurch, accompanied me to the Church Pageant, and while watching the varied scenes of our ancient history laid out before us, we discussed the points of difference between life in our historic land and" that in new lands lacking.all these noble associations with the past. . "This, again, .added fuel to the burning desire I already possessed to visit that English-like country of yours—New Zealand seems to be more akin to us than Australia." ' _ It is good to find a resident of the Old ■Land so keen to see the New, and I am sure Miss Greening will not regret what she evidently regards as a very bold step S> tt? s alone to the Britaini of the