SCHOOLBOY SUICIDES.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 121, 27 June 1914, Page 3

SCHOOLBOY SUICIDES.

FEARING FAILURE AT EXAMINATIONS. According to the Berlin correspondent of the <' Chicago Tribune,'' the recent examinations at the German schools were again, as each year, accompanied with numerous instances of boys killing themselves, either through fear that they would not pass or because of mortification at failure. On a single day three suicides of students, all less than 18 years old, were reported, and the body of one who had drowned himself some days earlier was recovered. These instances were in Greater Berlin alone. One of the boys threw himself in front of a train because he had not been promoted to a higher class. A suicide by drowning was that of a 17-year-old boy who was shortly to try the examination entitling him to discharge his military duties with one year's service. According to his teachers there was no doubt that he would have passed as he was unusually capable and intelligent. Failure is Serious Handicap.

The fixed bureaucratic scheme of life for the average German, while not explaining such suicides, throws some light on the youths' actions. Failure to

be graduated from school is a serious thing. To become a "Beamter," that is, a public official, is the goal of a great percentage of young Germans, for the official enjoys many privileges ilot granted to the non-official German. He has a certain tenure, a retiring pension, and other material advantages, and enjoys especial protection under the law of insults, it being a much graver crime to insult an official than a private citizen. But for those who have failed in their school work there is no chance to become State officials.. Bar to Great Positions. Even in private life they find it almost impossible to secure responsible positions with mercantile firms, and they are, of course, debarred from entering the learned professions. It is not altogether strange that the German youth is disposed to take a grave view of his failure. It is not only students ..in the schools who kill themselves before or after examinations. . A man of 22, who had been studying legal procedure reached the point where he was to take his examination for advancement to court clerk. .He repeatedly told his friends that he was sure he should not pass the examination.

The night before the examination he threw himself from the window of his third storey room and was crushed to death.