THE BOY’S PRIDE

Taranaki Daily News, 10 November 1932, Page 9

THE BOY’S PRIDE

PANTS AND PATCHES. JUDGE WHO WORE BOTH. “If. a boy can spit through his teetl), play football and turn somersaults, he doesn’t worry about patches on his back,” said the president of the Industrial Commission, Mr. Justice Browne, it . the basic wage inquiry in Sydney. Mr. C. E. Martin, an economist, who appeared for the New South Wales Public Schoolteachers’ Federation, suggested that. some money, say 10s, be provided iii the proposed basic wage, so that a schoolboy could join a sports club in the school. Otherwise, he suggested, the boy would not have so much opportunity for sport, would sutler from an inferiority complex and become unhappy. ONLY A FALSE SHAME. “He would feel the same way as a child who attends school in a cut-down coat of his father’s,” said Mr. ; Martin. But the president thought differently. “I don’t think that he should feci any shame because his father can’t afford to pay 10s a year to a sports club,” he said. “If he did, it would be only a false, shame.” Mr. Martin: But I suggest that a child is very sensitive. : ■ Mr. Justice Browne; I have been; a child.

Mr. Martin: It might be doing a child great psychological harm. But —“I don’t believe that,” went on the president firmly. “So long as a boy can play football he doesn’t worry if he hasn’t got 5s or 10s to join a club. He just plays—anywhere.” “I know that a boy who has to wear a patch on his pants feels out of place and worried,” pursued Mr. Martin. “No, no,” replied the president.

“Many a firns I have had patches on my pants going to school. I did not worry about them a bit.” Mr. Martin also recalled that he had worn a patch or two —and they had greatly worried him. “Probably there was some aristocracy where you went to school,” put in

the president. Mr. Martin attended school-in Broken Hill. And the opinions -of Mr. Justice Browne, who - taught boys years and years ago, and those of Mr. Martin, who' taught in more recent years, on the average schoolboy were decidedly at variaiic&i - ■*' /

“Anyway,.! have an entirely different view of the Australian schoolboy,” said Mr. Justice Browne. ’ “They would not' exclude the village Bradman because he .could not'afford to pay, would they?” inquired Mr. Justice Webb.