BOYS LEAVING SCHOOL

Taranaki Daily News, 15 October 1931, Page 7

BOYS LEAVING SCHOOL

PROBLEM OF UNEMPLOYMENT CLOSING OF ORDINARY AVENUES. EXTRA YEAR’S SCHOOLING URGED. VIEWS GIVEN BY HEADMASTER. The necessity to prA/ide avenues, of employment for young lads just leaving school is ever before our minds. This is one of the most tragic phases of the present depression. Men who have passed middleage have more or legs formed their characters, but boys leaving school ■ at the ages of 16 and 17 with all the high hopes of boyhood before them will be irretrievably ruined if in the next two or three years they find they are not wanted—the Kt. Hon. J. G. Coates. “The schools in Taranaki are more fortunate than thogc in the cities,” stated Mr. W. H. Moyes, headmaster of the New Plymouth Boys High School, in discussing the position with a News reporter yesterday. “Up to the present, with one or two exceptions we have been able to place boys leaving school. It looks, however, as if the position will be much more difficult at the end of the present year.” The ordinary avenues for boys going into commercial life were closed. The public services were taking none now, the banks were taking none, and there was little opportunity of employment for boys in the business houses of the towns. “If parents can manage it,” said Mr. Moyes, “it 'will be wiser for them, unless they can place their boys in positions, to let them continue for another year at school. There at least the boys would not be wasting their time, and nothing is worse for a boy than to be idling about, willing to work yet unable to find employment.” COMMITTED TO THE LAND. With regard to New Plymouth, there was always a section of boys at the school definitely committed to the land, said Mr. Moyes. They consisted almost solely of the sons of farmers and they invariably went back to the farms of their fathers and were ultimately settled on farms of their own. These boys were not affected so much as others. The section that was affected was the section consisting of boys from the town who, when prices were high in good times, used to train for farming. At present there were practically no town boys entered for the agricultural course at the school. The average man knew he could not find tho capital to put the boy on the land and the boy himself read and thought and came to the conclusion that conditions on the land at the present time did not offer safe prospects. The boy whom it was most difficult to place to-day, was undoubtedly- the boy who was preparing for an ordinary commercial position.- Younger boys were finding small jobs as messengers, but the usual avenues—the Lands Department, the Customs, the Railways Department and so on —were closed. As a last report, said Mr. Moyes, those boys of 17 or 18 who could not find other employment could go into special camps and work at lighter labour such as scrub cutting or gorse grubbing. They should certainly be segregated from the ordinary unemployment camps. The boys would have to be supervised and, their work allotted by someone with experience in the control of boys. From his knowledge of boys he was sure that under proper supervision they would Work remarkably well, and all they would need would be their food and their pocket money. “At the same time,” said Mr. Moyes, “I have no hesitation, in saying that if possible those boys should instead be given an extra year at school. Provided prosperity returns, it can do their careers no harm. Further, there is no doubt that it is in the latter years of their schooling that boys develop their characters and their sense of responsibility.” r ■- ; ’