THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1927. COUNTRY SCHOOLS AND SUMMER TIME.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20235, 21 October 1927, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1927. COUNTRY SCHOOLS AND SUMMER TIME.

Some of the country school committees, particularly in the north, seem to be apprehensive of difficulties connected with the introduction of Summer Time. The Auckland Education Board has received requests that the opening hour of schools in country districts should be delayed and has decided that permission shall be given to all school committees to fix the time for starting school during the summer months. The extension of the latitude for which they have asked should ease the minds of members of school committees in rural districts in Auckland. But in Otago, also, some concern is being exhibited over the hour at which school shall commence during the operation of Summer Time. A country school committee has asked that the school in connection with which it exercises jurisdiction should be permitted to open at “ the usual time.” The regulations of the Education Board provide that schools must not bo opened later than 9.30 a.m. Opening at “ the usual time ” would mean that if a school has been opened in the past at 9.30 it would, during the operation of Summer Time, open at 10.30. That point is not, however, very material. It is to be observed that members of the Otago Board expressed the view that the committee which protested to it respecting the harmful results which it thought daylight saving would have upon school children in the country districts did not understand the effect of the Summer Time Act. That criticism might be applied also to the representations made by country school committees in the north. An essential fact under the alteration of the clock will be that the interval between daylight and the time at which the schools are now assembled will be reduced by an hour. The effect of that should not be noticeable to people who are not in the habit of getting up very early. It will, in fact, not be noticeable after the experience of a day or two. The solicitude of the farmers respecting school hours in the country would seem to be governed by the consideration that tho school children will have less time to spend in the cowsheds and in work associated with dairying before they go to school. But it was stated in the discussion at the meeting of the Auckland Education Board that most of the children are already in the cowsheds before 5.30 a.m. It remains to be seen whether the alteration of the clock is going to make any great difference to them after all. If it should mean their doing less work before school that may eventually prove a good thing. The argument that under Summer Time the farmer will be compelled to get up an hour earlier does not harmonise with the view that the farmer works by the sun and uses all the hours of daylight there are. In any case the fact that other people are getting up a little earlier should not materially affect his work. There seems to be a disposition in the rural districts to anticipate the occurrence of difficulties which may never present themselves at all under Summer Time and of hardships which are not likely to materialise if the experience of other countries under systems of daylight saving is repeated in New Zealand. The chairman of the Farmers’ Union for the Dominion has offered serviceable advice to the country settlers in telling them that, now that Summer Time is the law of the laud, the least they can do is to “ give it a fair run” and that it was incumbent on them to do their best to make it a success. His advice will not be appreciated by those farmers who have already determined, as they have said, to create difficulties for themselves by refusing to alter their clocks. Nevertheless, it is sound advice.