CHILDREN FIRST

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18323, 15 February 1934, Page 6

CHILDREN FIRST

ATTITUDE OF UNEMPLOYED NO UNDER NOURISHMENT TEACHER’S OBSERVATIONS A tribute to the unemployed parents of certain children under his charge was paid to-day by a Gisborne schoolmaster of long experience, who stated that, though many of the pupils came from homes where the main income was from relief work, ihey showed no sign of under-nourishment or of disregard for school rules and discipline. The parents were quite evidently placing the interests of the children in‘tile forefront, he remarked, and trying to ensure Quit the pupils wouid secure the best results from their education. In common with the masters of other schools, tie added, he had watched particularly for any signs of under-nourish-ment in children who came from homes affected by unemployment. It was expected at one time that the work of these hildren would suffer owing to home influences created by lack of income, but that expectation, happily, has not been realised so far as his observation went The children might be dressed a shade below the old standard of more prosperous years, and certainly could not afford the chihbsh luxuries that once were a feature of school life, but they were sent to school well fed and fit 'to take their part in study and play. He felt that it was of the utmost importance that this should be known to the general public, for obviously it meant that some parents were denying themselves in order to give their children every chance. • . As an instance of the feeling of the unemployed parents, the master produced one of many letters he had received. It was in the form of a request that a certain child should' not be punished for failing to bring all the books he would require for his new standard, as his parents could not afford to buy them as yet, but would complete his supply as -middy as possible. This note had come from a mother in Napier,' ’where she had gone in the hope of securing work, and he fullv expected that anything the boy lacked now would be made up without delay. SCIIOOL-BOOK PROBLEM

Some of the boy pupils in particular had had their business sense sharpened by tho slump, he continued. In several cases the boys had bought their books out of their earnings in the school holidays, or from gifts of money received at Christmas time. Where the hooks were thus obtained, it'showed in the first instance a keenness on the part of the pupil to get on in school, and also a spirit of selfreliance that should take a boy far in the future, he felt.

The problem of school books had, however, been eased for many unemployed families this year by the ready response to a suggestion circulated throughout the schools. The response came from pupils who were passing from one standard into another and had no further use for the text-books they had used last year. As a result of the response in his own school, ho was able to say that not one application had been necessary under the special regulations of the Education Department for text-books for destitute scholars.

This was a fine indication, to his mind, of the way the depression was being met. by children as well as adults, pupils moving up in the school placing their old ,text-.books in the general pool for the benefit of those who followed them in last year’s standard,