DRESS AND CHARACTER.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LI, Issue 16918, 24 December 1925, Page 2

DRESS AND CHARACTER.

.SCHOOLBOYS' UNIFORM. .MAKES FOR SELF RESPECT. t That good dress helps to make good boys was advanced by the headmaster of,the Dunedin school, Mr. Forris, and was supported by Dean Carrington at tho annual prizegiving. Certain people . were talking about throwing off dress, said Mr. Ferris. Throwing off dress, in his opinion, was not only throwing off an adornment of the l ody but one of the mind. ‘,‘t find boys at their best best,” he ■went on, “when they are well dressed.” Better appearance was, he believed, an indication of something better, and if everyone knew* what an effect good dress had" in making selfrespecting boys there would be no grumbling on”thc subject of dress, or about boys having to w'ear stiff Eton collars. Somo boys thought they did not like them, but he did not be•licve it. He trembled for the time when he would be unablo to go on with tho school, when ho would bo run over by a bus or sonic other vehicle, for then ho was inclined to /think the collars worn at his school would go too. “for not aU masters are as conservative as I am,” concluded Mr. Ferris. “I wish to endorse Mr. Ferric’ reabout dress,” said Dean Carrington. in studying up material for the Canterbury anniversary celebrations he had come across a little picture of the vpry early d&ys of the province showing how in tho earliest, time Mr. Henry Jacobs, the great schola* who ,cnme to this Dominion, then walked about in Lyttelton with n, group of boys in cap and gown. To many nowadays it would seem a ridiculous thing that in the seaport in days when the pioneers had hardly time to plant their first potatoes, let alorto build, a house, Mr. Jacobs should hnvc walked around with his students in such a garb. “But that,’’ .declared the dean, “was the beginning of Christ’s College, and the reflection passed across my mind ns I looked at the picture that the cap and gown had been a big factor in the founding of the college, for thete is a great deal in ‘nnifoTih, inny it be of the simple kind.” . . . ... ..