UNION OF PUPILS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 78, Issue 7015, 4 February 1949, Page 5

UNION OF PUPILS

ALM OF BRITISH HEADMASTER ABOLITION OF THE CANE Mr Robert Copping, the “no cane” headmaster who has gained wide newspaper publicity in Britain, recently hired a hall in London which seats 1800 to launch an appeal for an international union, of school children, but only 13 children and 24 adults arrived. Mr Copping, flanked by eight pupils from his own school, some of whom smoked and chewed gum, explained his ideas. Brandishing an assortment of canes, he asked why people should arm themselves against children with weapons they did not now use against criminals.

“The adults in Britain have superior numbers, but we claim that equality of status should be given to children to make their own decisions and decide how their lives should be planned,” he said. “If all Britain’s 12 million children joined the union they would be in control of the country. A schoolmaster would not be able to give a pupil a clip or the ear because masters would know the union would get the sack.”