PROPERLY CLOTHED.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19529, 11 July 1925, Page 7

PROPERLY CLOTHED.

THE SCHOOLBOY’S DILEMMA,

Grave conferences are going on, and problems of the utmost moment are daily being decided in certain departments of the largo London shops nowadays. Tho deliberators are usually divided into small groups m from two to four, and always ono of their number is wearing a school cap, and seems engaged in stating a case to a more elderly audience of parents (says tho Morning Post) , Tho problem to bo resolved —by the younger lepresentatives at least —is how “still to bo neat, still to bo dressed’ in conformity with school regulations, while yet affording tho widest latitude to ia dividual iasto and fancy, and a preference for rainbow colours. The young men m tho bright caps are seriously hampered by two circumstances: tho over-critical and unimaginative views on dress with which all parents seem cursed, and by tho rigidly prescriptive letters which bursars of schools will send to outfitting departmehts, and which the salesmen—who remain in unholy alliance with the bursars —will produce at the wrong moments. It is discouraging when having planned to be subtly distinguished from the rest of the form by the presence of only three buttons on the waistcoat, to bo shown a letter quite uncompromisingly states that all “vests shall “bear” four. ... ~ . The same repressive spirit is evident in tho matter of socks. Often they have to be a funereal black, but whore merely quiet is specified there is sometimes opportunity for a little scope, if parents are broadminded and in the right mood. lortunately, it is often possible to ensure a touch of originality in the stripe ot a shirt, and no school has yet added the last straw by framing regulations on discreetness in pyjamas. Sometimes, after all his hopes have been defeated and his aspirations checked, the schoolboy is permitted a moment of sweet revenge on his elders. Having worked systematically downwards to the feet, the ( 'parent inquires; “Now what about white cricket boots? Buckskin is best- —” “White boots? inter* rupts the budding cricketer, in a tone of pity and horror, “Great heavens I Don t you know that at Harrow wo wear only brown on tho playing-field?” The moment of confusion which follows is invariably favourable to obtaining another pair of pyjamas.