FINE RECORD OF SCHOOL

Taranaki Daily News, 11 May 1935, Page 17 (Supplement)

FINE RECORD OF SCHOOL

PROGRESS OF LAST CENTURY LONG FIGHT FOR RECOGNITION SCHOOL GROWS WITH DISTRICT To-morrow residents of Inglewood will celebrate the diamond jubilee of the establishment of the public sphool. The record of the district in educational advance is a proud one, and is so despite—or perhaps because of-—the stern fight in the early days of the settlement for a right to participate in the benefits that had been obtained by older established communities. It is notable that the school was established in the first year of Inglewood’s existence, and that in the years that followed a high degree of efficiency was maintained although, at times, teachers and pupils alike were faced with the almost insuperable handicap of insufficient accommodation. At all times residents of the district have taken a commendable interest in the welfare of their school-children, have been active in agitating for Government, recognition of their requirements, and have provided money and labour to assist the school directly. The committees, particularly, throughout the whole 60 years of the school’s life have done everything in their power to build up the efficiency of the institution. By'fortunate chance the agitation of many years’ duration for the provision of a modern, convenient building was consummated in this, the jubilee year. The new school, one of the finest in Taranaki, was opened in February, and the committee received the congratulations of the Education Board for its- tenacity in seeing the enterprise through, in face of seemingly endless difficulties and delays. % To-morrow a thanksgiving service will be held in the town hall, but the celebrations will be officially opened in the school grounds on Monday morning. At night there will be re-unions for the old girls and old boys of the school, and a gala day will be held at the school grounds on Tuesday.

To understand the pride Inglewood school has in its history and the significance of the jubilee celebrations one must have an acquaintance with, the history of the district itself. Probably no Taranaki settlement was established under greater physical difficulties. It is commonplace to say that Taranaki pioneers carved their homes out of the bush, but in the case of Inglewood it is literally true. The country was clothed in the heaviest bushland in Taranaki and the site for the town was cleared by axe and fire in the heart of a tremendous forest that lay about the foot of . Mount Egmont. ■ . ' . Settlement presented its almost insuperable difficulties to the individual. Each homestead site was a mere laborious clearing in the midst of such bush and, while potentially wealthy by reason of the richness of his land, the early settler in instances had insufficient food until he could grow and graze a little for' himself. , .

Yet, in the midst of such primitive conditions’ the need .of , some education for the . children was realised and the school was established; at the same time as. • the-settlement. The children themselVes often travelled three or four miles to school every. morning along winding foot tracks in the forest, ankle deep in half frozen . slush on winter mornings. ■The. school buildings were, primitive, overcrowded and; inadequately ventilated and lighted. School: was perhaps the easiest part. of the child’s day, then. Every hand was needed in the desperate fight to win a living. frbm the land. It is even recorded that some settlers could not, afford to pay the few pence school fee for their: children. The early teachers lived under the most primitive conditions and were not even certain of their scanty pay..

Despite these conditions adequate training in the three R’s was given and the child of the pioneer received the basis of an education that was to stand him in good stead in after life. The sacrifice for the acquisition of the knowledge, small though it may seem in comparison with the education given the public school child to-day, is almost

incomprehensible to the person who knows only Taranaki of to-day.

The brunt of fight fell on the teachers and the committeemen. Perusal of the records show that they fought for recognition of their claims without cease and succeeded eventually. z The first teacher, Mr. W. H. J. Tobin, is still remembered ' affectionately by his surviving “boys.” They recall the little /mannerisms that remain perhaps the most lasting impression of a teacher in the mind of a pupil. “What sort of a man was he,” an inquirer asked of a foundation pupil recently. “Well . . . strict, you know, But just.” That was •the unanimous verdict.

The memory of winter school days in the seventies, with the memory of an overworked and perhaps underfed teacher drumming, reading, writing and arithmetic into the heads of children already tired before the day began must be indeed different from the memory the “fresh-air” school pupil of to-day will carry in after life. ' Knowledge was hard come by; but it “stuck.” The same children who were called away to. work in the bush when they had scarcely learned to read and write built up a prosperous portion of a kindly province on the ashes of a defeated wilderness. The children of to-day will have a proud record if they can claim a commensurate work 60 years hence. Tha- Inglewood school of the ’seventies served its purpose well. The history of the district is the history of the , school. Conditions changed as the tide of the battle for existence turned. In three years the town was established though giant rimu stumps still stood in the main street. The bush'' had' been driven from the back door. A timber getting industry was becoming established. A few cows appeared on the first small grassed paddocks. The fungus industry was supplying an unexpected source of industry. The railway ! came through. • In 1885, when the first combined school was built, there were 83 children attending it. j Before Mr. James Grant, then the headmaster—and a man who was largely, responsible for building up a proud tradition of efficiency—resigned in 1905 the district had coine into a fine peak of prosperity and there were no fewer. than 265 children attending the institution, ■ With the gentler years of . this century the same unremitting desire for progress brought improvement' after improvement until the school to-day—with its pleasant rooms and* furniture, its fine play grounds and its happy children—stands as an obilisk to ,dead difficulties, in some measure of symbol of the district itself.