SCHOOLBOY’S MISDEEDS

Taranaki Daily News, 19 December 1929, Page 11

SCHOOLBOY’S MISDEEDS

MASTER BLAMES PARENTS. DETENTIONS EARNED BY ELDERS. Laxity among parents toward the education and well-being of their sons was depored in the annual report of the headmaster of the Mount Albert Grammar School, Mr. F. W. Gamble. He suggested that many parents were really to blame for the faults for which their sons were punished. “Far too many boys are known to the.school only as members of a form in the corporate life of the school,” he said. “In organised games, clubs and societies talented boys have splendid opportunities for cultivating what natural gifts or tastes they\ may possess. “A boy is too great a prospective asset for his character-training to be left to chance or his own inclination, and, if every parent, realising a son’s tendencies and deficiencies, insisted upon his using the facilities we have ready for him, we should soon have the satisfaction "of knowing that our resources are employed for - the maximum good. Even in mere routine matters and in common duties there is a laxity among parents Which is duly reflected in their son’s attitude to everyday obligations. - . • “We have unnecessary difficulty and delay in receiving* notes for absence and lateness; we. find.boys neglecting homework through lack of a parent’s interest; we see . boys allowed to lounge round'the streets: aimlessly and without any apparent restraint; .we see positively sad cases of neglect of a boy’s ■ appearance and are observations of only'a few of the Ways in whicli some' parents are Jieedlessly sowing, for a crop of disappointments. .

; “It is riot too much to ask that a parent should be punctilious' as to the normal, every-day obligations imposed' on them, by having a son at school, and in common justice to the boys themselves- I must put forward this plea on tliejr behalf. Our weekly detention is altogether too popular an institution, and I frankly state that in many cases boys are working out detentions really earned by their parents. After all a boy is only a boy, arid it is for their elders, at home as well as at school, to steer them, clear of the petty troubles, for which they do penance on Friday afternoons.”