BOYS' HIGH SCHOOL. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 7317, 29 July 1885, Page 4

BOYS' HIGH SCHOOL. TO THE EDITOR.

Sic,—The High School holidays end to-day, and we parents are looldng forward to our boys' return to school.

We are all justly sensible of our advantages iv haying an endowed school, as well as a splenelid building in which our boys receive their education ; but, sir, we also feel (I speak for myself and the many parents who have discussed this subject with me) that, in enumerating the educational advantages offered by the High School, we must stop here. The school in every 'other respect falls far short of what it ought to be—viz., an English public school on a small scale; whereas it about realises a parish school on a large scale.

The whole tone of the school is a lamentably low one. Pilfering, lying, and cheating are rife among the boys in school; bullying and swearing prevail in the playground. . While the parents generally deplore this state of things, they feel it incumbent on them to inquire how and why they exist, and if it is not possible to remedy them. Doubtless one great drawback to the school has been its being practically without a rector for so long a time. Everyone sympathises with the rector's family in the calamity which has befallen him, and I believe all those interested in the High School would gladly let thensympathies take a substantial form, but they also feel that the interests of the school ought no longer to be sacrificed as they have been for the. last year or two to this sentiment.

Two or three years of anarchy or misrule are sufficient to revolutionise the best-ordered school that ever existed, aud the longer such an evil goes on, the more difficult it will be to remedy. I earnestly trust the Board of Governors will delay no longer in endeavouring to set right the wrong that is undoing our school and driving parents to send their boys to Christchurch, Akaroa, Oamaru, and other distant schools.

j It is not so much the deficiency in the teaching power of the school that is the matter of complaint amongst parents as the utter failure in instilling an honourable or manly tone into the school. High School boys have" no proper esprit de corps. No discipline exists outside the walls of the schoolroom, aud they exhibit all the characteristics of the "cad" or "larrikin" unabasheel. What Rugby was before Arnold's time is a matter of history. What it is now I hope our High School will become in some degree, under fit and able management.—l am, &c, A Parext. July 28.