The Daily News FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1926. EVOLVING WORTHY WOMEN

Taranaki Daily News, 17 December 1926, Page 8

The Daily News FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1926. EVOLVING WORTHY WOMEN

The annual report of the headmistress of the New Plymouth Girls’ High School, presented at the breaking-up ceremony on Wednesday, is not only worthy of being closely and seriously considered by all who have the cause of true education at heart, but it also shows Miss Allen is a keen educationalist. It therefore becomes a source of the utmost satisfaction by reason of the convincing evidence it furnishes that the school and its work cannot fail to make a deep and enduring impression on the future welfare, not only of the district which it primarily serves, but on the Dominion as a whole. There was not a subject in connection with the process of equipping girls for their future life that the headmistress did not handle with the skill of a sound thinker, an expert educationalist, with a fund of experience and commonsense, while permeating the whole report was to be detected that intuitive womanly instinct and depth of feeling so eminently characteristic of cultured womanhood possessing a high, sense of character building, and keen perception of the true niches to be filled by those passing onward from the school of learning to the larger duties of life. Added interest was given to the contents of the report by reason of the school having reached a new and enlarged era of usefulness by reason of its amalgamation with the technical branch of education in the ensuing term, a change which Miss Allen correctly diag-

noses as one that should affect the future of the whole town, giving, as it does, a unique opportunity of fostering in the youth of New Plymouth a spirit of unity, of solidarity, of civic pride and responsibility. The amalgamation of the training and preparation of girls for professions and for the practical sides of life under the name of vocations, under one- administrative system has many advantages. Time alone will testify to the wisdom or otherwise of the new departure. That the principle is sound must be admitted. It is pleasing to find that Miss Allen foresees that in place of each of the past systems—the high schools and the technical college “having a strained belief in the excellence of their respective systems and the weakness of the other,” there will now be a chance “to know each other; to learn that good brains are needed for and found in commerce, business, trade, home, as well as in the professions; that we can break down the .watertight compartments, take the good of both systems and combine into one rounded whole.” That is exactly the fundamental aim which the amalgamation is designed to achieve. If teachers were able to ae.ntrately envisage the future of their pupils they would also be in a position to equip them for their destined roles. That being impossible, teachers are faced with the difficult task of making the best possible use of generaTs.ed instruction, the finding of a common denominator, results of which, however admirably conceived and pursued, can only be •tested in the future. Whether the testing perfod is ten or twenty years hence is immaterial, but nothing is more certain than that responsibility for whatever the results may be cannot be charged on the teachers; it must be shared by the parents as well as the pupils. The most that ablest teachers can do is, as Miss Allen forcefully explained, is to help to build up sound minds in healthy bodies, paying special attention to the formation of character, to inculcate honesty of thought in word and deed, and a thoroughness in the performance of every duty or task—from the smallest t the greatest—that will bring its own reward, while as to leisure, the scholars are taught that the road to happiness is to be found in service to others. “Above all,” said Miss Allen, “we are trying to instill into the girls the necessity for thinking clearly, for facing issues and for carrying gallantly whatever duty may be laid upon them.” Truly a programme of lofty ideals conducing to the moral, mental and physical welfare of girls who grow into women worthy of the great Empire in which they live. To thoughtlessness, probably more than to any other cause is attributed, not infrequently, the taking of wrong paths, hence the wisdom of paying special attention to the inculcation of “right” thinking. The last point to be stressed, but by no means the least in importance, is the need for co-operation between the mothers and the teachers in the training and character building of the girls. To this end the proposals of Miss Allen for meetings of the mothers with the teachers should find immediate endorsement by those concerned. The wonder is that such a manifestly beneficial intercourse should not have been in active operation long since. On this proposal, as well as on the report as a whole, Miss Allen has justly earned universal commendation and added to the reputation of the school.