PATRIOTISM IN SCHOOLS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18323, 13 August 1921, Page 10

PATRIOTISM IN SCHOOLS

MR PARR SPEAKS OUT. (From Oue Own Correspondent.) AUCKLAND, August 12. After unfurling a Union Jack presented by the Navy League bo the Newmarket School, the Minister of Education, the Hon. U. 'J. Parr, had some comments to make to the large gathering which was present on the subject of patriotism in schools. Mr Parr said he had been criticised in certain quarters for not keeping the Navy League out of schools. There were some foolish people who said it was wrong to encourage ideas about the British navy in the minds of the children, but he took full responsibility for facilitating the league’s ideas reaching the schools. Many people did not realise what the nation owed to the Navy League. In his judgment, it was the influence of the league’s propaganda in Great Britain that was largely responsible for victory in the great war. The Navy League would have access to the school children of New Zealand, because he believed it possessed the ability to acquaint the young people of the country of the epic of the navy, and all that the navy had done for British, freedom and justice in the last 400 or 500 years. “I entirely agree with my friends and neighbours who long for the day when there shall bo no war,” said Mr Parr. “ and I endorse the idea of the. League of Nations.” These things, however, were not yet, and it was incumbent, in the meantime, to ensure maintenance of. the Empire’s traditions by relying on preparedness against foreign aggression. Though free from German trouble, the world was not free from all trouble. There were indications that the storm centre was shifting from one ocean to another, and there was a danger of pravest trouble aris-ng unless the greatest, diplomatic care was exercised. School children now salute the flag onoe a week all over the countrv, concluded the Minister, “and teachers take the opnortunitv. T hope, of telling them what it stands for, and the lessons of history it teaches on iho whole of the British Empire stands for the finest ideals and inst*co the world has ever known.” —(Applause.) J