SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD

Southland Times, Issue 19658, 7 October 1922, Page 8

SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD

INTERESTING LETTER FROM MELBOURNE. Mr McNeil, late headmaster of Waihopai school, is at present on a visit to Australia. The following letter to a friend contains a most interesting account of the educational jubilee celebrations in Melbourne last month:— In extent the Fitzroy gardens are ample enough for one to lose oneself amid their groves, shrubberies and avenues; their broad, winding paths and gently sloping green lawns. They are a more grateful refuge from the clamour of the city than are the more elaborately decorative botani- ; cal gardens on the southern side of the Yarra. For here one steps abruptly from the roar of the long dusty street to the cool serenity of a forest with green glades showing through the tracery of branches ajad leaves. True, the English elms are still bare, but the willows are draped in \ delicate green, the evergreen Australian banyan contrasts its dense foliage of large leaves to the bareness of oaks, the feathery frond of fern-tree and palm add a touch of more luxurious beauty to this woodland domain. Scattered in groups and pairs and individuals are well-dressed folk—children and adolescents, middle-aged people and elderly, moving to and fro, seated in deck chairs or reclining on the grass, and, through the far vistas of the trees, the changing human scene continues itself into the dimness. Doves, magpies and kookaburras make their best efforts to be tuneful; a subdued murmur of voices punctuated by the laughter and shouting of youngsters forms a kind of environment of subdued, dispersed sound. Of this aspect, it seems to me, were the happy isles which Mirza saw; and here Omar would have found sanctuary from the vexing problems to which his long quest could find no answer. You trace, I daresay, a note of leisured detachment in these observations of mine. The pressure of things importunately demanding to be done within a given time is consciously withdrawn, and a sense of emancipation leaves the mind open to impressions and appeals which arc commonly shut out by the rush of practical affairs. Not that I have shunned the educational realm: it is indeed most interesting to reenter it as an irresponsible observer. Under the tutelage of the Principal of Melbourne Training College, I visited the various departments of activity in his comprehensive, well-staffed institution, spent some instructive periods in sundry schools, and gathered information as to recent developments of education in Victoria. I cannot set forth my findings within the compass of a letter. But take this solace to the brethren that, though I have witnessed various methods of the new era in operation I have seen no results that I should place above what the best Southland schools can produce ; and I saw a good deal that was markedly below that level. 1 have still, however, to visit the schools reckoned the most efficient within this metropolis, so I shall withhold final judgment. The teachers are a hard-working, devoted, obedient, well-disciplined body of State servants. They are well organised, that is from without, by a Department with a traditional proneness for red-tape and officialism. As an association of fellow-workers organised for mutual assistance they have not yet realised how much they have missed. One of the best things primary teachers in New Zealand have is the N.Z.E.I. and its branches. Let there be no doubt about that. Preparation for the jubilee has encroached on ordinary school work for some weeks past indeed the special physical culture display has been in hand for months. Rain postponed it a week ago and yesterday a sudden thunderstorm incontinently broke up the demonstration when the first great item was completed. In its scale as in the spectacular and even the dramatic aspect it surpassed the biggest enterprise of the kind in Australasia. J. had a special invitation card to the reserved stand where 500 of the elect sat along with the viceregal party. The grounds were those of | the Melbourne C.C. with grandstand all 1 round a belt of banked-up ground for standing spectators. This amphitheatre presented a dense sea of faces when, to band music, the children who had been marshalled in an adjoining area marched 8 deep (4 boys and 4 girls abreast) through a wide gateway and marching round the enclosure formed with neat precision and exactness a hollow square, eight deep and packed in dense order so as to include at least 6000 of the children. Two temporary openings were left at opposite corners with guards of honour, and girls in red and white marched through these in single file and with beautiful marching and countermarching fashioned out the inscription, “Our Jubilee: 1872—1922.” within the square as if by magic. To show the magnitude of the design the letters in “Jubilee” were, at our best . estimate, 30 yards in height, the fines being formed by a double file of girls standing in close formation. The square was closed up, the frame of the picture was finished. But not before the white-clad and white-shod teachers who had, at regular intervals, marched with their pupils, had withdrawn themselves from the picture to sit just within the circle of 70,000 enthusiastic spectators who roared their applause. The scene was set; Earl Shadbrooke, his Lady and suite accompanied by the Minister and the Director moved on to their balcony while the children led by the band sang the anthem magnificently. A pause for everyone to be seated who had a seat; the conductor from his perch blew a whistle and the ranks stood alert. Another blast and the whole square knelt with bowled heads; the outer four lines, being girls in dark blue, were like a thick ruled margin against the four lines of boys in white. Simultaneously the girls forming the inscription took a reclining posture, partly resting on one another, their scarlet stockings and scarlet fairy caps, with white tunics, giving the letters the appearance of being formed of a floral pattern. This new and most eloquent posture was taken in a single moment without a sign of confusion. The band then played “Lead Kindly Light,” and instinctively, for Australians are more aptly responsive than we. hats were doffed all round. The music ceased, there was a long pause of silence, the whistle blew and the living square became erect, but for a minute or two longer the floral inscription remained as it was, moveless, till the whistle suddenly erected the letters again. Final signal— the square moved of as it had come, the letters dissolved away, and that magnificent human tableau had vanished. Ominous clouds were banking overhead and anxious faces scanned the sky. But the second item was begun without delay. At least over a thousand small boys and girls, partnered off for a Morris dance, were marching as steadily and proudly as veterans into the arena when a tremendous burst of thunder came and was repeated like artillery. The rain came down in drenching torrents and, before? the. little morris-dancers could be got under cover, their gay garb was sodden and clinging to their drenched little bodies. Indeed these sturdy little people could hardly be persuaded to break the ordered programme and stampede for shelter. Great is discipline. The rain kept on till the ground was in pools. A reluctant multitude reluctantly persuaded itself to go home. I saw a good many of the drill exercises, folkdances etc., performed by squads in the schools which I visited, and I am sure the performance cancelled by the rain would have been impressive if not unique. The teachers thought the finale—the Maypole Dances —would prove the finest spectacle of all. The whole ring was to be girt by the flying ribbon wearers. The worst is that the grounds (worth very big money every Saturday) arc engaged for big sporting events the rest of the year. The metropolitan schools must have put endless pains into this festival. The control exercised on that huge crowd of youngsters waiting for two hours, many of them three hours, before the actual march in commenced, was a great credit to the teachers. I took the liberty of going in

to see that critical stage of the ordeal, and metaphorically took off my hat to the men and women who managed things bo well. Within the arena, the tense attention of the crowd helped to sustain the tense attention of the children to their part. I need hardly say the arrangements for looking after the crowd were complete. Not a spectator ventured within the arepa, nor blocked the gateway. The police had nothing to'do, there was habitual discipline in that multitude which our free-and-easy assemblages would themselves appreciate if it were for a few occasions put into striiy gent operation.

On the enclosed folder see programme, but especially read the graphic article “The Stream of Youth to the School-house,” written by Gillies, whose" history and civics text-books we once used. It is worth reproducing for its eloquent plea for a more adequate expenditure on the education service. 1 spent an afternoon in the Federal House of Representatives and heard Hughes revelling in debate and altercation with his virulent opponents. The whole press is down on him, but he is a past master in the game of politics, so that he holds a chance of coming back with a majority at the December elections. My fraternal greetings to all the brethren. Ave atque vale. The following is the article referred to in the above letter: — EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, VICTORIA THE STREAM OF YOUTH TO THE SCHOOL-HOUSE Have you ever thought of the morning stream of boys and girls to the schoolhouse from every corner of town and country? Day after day, year after year, from Casterton to Mallacoota Inlet, and from the Murray to the sea, the Stream of Youth sets in to the school-house. They come on foot, or in buggy, on on horseback—sometimes two, or even three, to the horse; on sled or in boat ; on train or tram. They come in all weathers; facing the scorching summer winds of the Murray plains, and cutting winter winds of the Wimmera, the rain-storms of Gippsland, the sleet that drives hissing along the mountain-tracks of the Dargo uplands. They come along open roads deep in dust, and forest tracks deep in mud. They make “short cuts” to school under the sea-cliff, or over the fallen tree that bridges the creek, or along the railway track that crosses the swamp. -They come out of houses and huts and tents. Out of fossickers’ camps in lonely gullies, and from clearings deep in the bush, they break through the forest tangle to the tracks that meet at the school-house gate. They run along city streets, where the seasons are marked by the fruits and flowers in shopwindows ; and they saunter along country roads, where each month is heralded by a new wild flower, or butterfly, or bird-note. The patter of their feet to the city school is lost in the street noise; but, in the morning quiet of the country road, their shouts and greetings are heard a mile away. Thousands of mothers have been astir with the dawn to get these boys and girls moving to school; and thousands of the boys and girls have been busily employed in various ways before they could take the roads.

And the 2,500 schools to which we have called this bright-faced throng of a quarter of a million young Victorians—what of them ? Can our schools be too good for t-bese young, eager souls, who put themselves with trust in our hands? The State has called them: what will it make of them ? Will they be taught the best that the long experience of the race can give them ? Will they be taught self-control and industry so that good work will become a joy to them ? Will they be trained in service and sacrifice so that they may know in due time the joy of good citizenship? In every corner of the land, there are fathers and mothers who are working hard and faring hard to give their boys and girls a good schooling—a sacrifice that gives dignity and worth to many an obscure home. And can anything give greater dignity and worth to a nation than sacrifices made for the nation’s children ? Is there any better aim to fire the imagination of a statesman than a school service that can draw the ablest and finest spirits to the work of education? Men differ as to the part that armies and navies will play in the time to come; but can any man of vision doubt that school power will count for more than it has ever done? More and more, too, reformers are turning from the stubborn, unchangeable adult to the plastic child. How else, they say, can we empty the jails, and the lunatic asylums, and check the flow of sick to the hospitals? How else can we lead the people into the same ways of life that bring prosperity and happiness? How else can we get leaders fit to give us worthy ideals, and the driving force to seek them ? More and more, therefore, all the world over, the men who shape events are looking to the school, and are thinking of thb Stream of Youth that flows to the schpolhouse, day after day, year after year.