EARLY SCHOOL DAYS

Taranaki Daily News, 12 July 1935, Page 10

EARLY SCHOOL DAYS

MR. W. SYME LOOKS BACK TRIBUTES TO MR. A. MAIR "I was a pupil the Hawera school from 1875 to 1881,” Mr. Walter Syme, a well-known resident of Hawera, told a Daily News representative, “and I am proud of my association with the school. We came up from Wanganui as children by Cobb's coach, and you will have an idea of the state of the roads when I tell you that there was no metal on this side of Waverley. "Hawera in those days was a very small place with none of the modern amenities of life, and we lived in a small house on the site of the present Winter Show buildings. The blockhouse, on a rise where Welsh, McCarthy, Houston and Coleman’s office and the library are now, had been used as a school, but the school I first attended was on the site of the present Main school. The masters who taught me were Messrs. Chamberlain, Dunne, Thompson, Harre and Mair.” His longest association was with Mr. Alex. Mair, a fine young man of Scottish descent, who later married one of the women teachers, Miss Cornfoot, said Mr. Syme. He was a man who proved a most excellent teacher, who devoted all his ability and energy to . the school work and was held in the highest esteem. He was still gratefully remembered by those who were his pupils during his 14 years as headmaster. All through his life, said Mr. Syme, he had felt the benefit of the thorough teaching given him by Mr. Mair, and he felt suie there were others .who revered his mem-

ory and who had benefited greatly by his example and precept.

The whole countryside was in a very primitive state in those early days, continued Mr. Syme. He recalled the days of the bush fires when Hawera was shrouded all day in a pall of smoke, and when at night, the countryside was aglow with the reflections from the great fires. It was a great treat for him as a boy to get as. far as Manaia with a travelling tradesman on roads which bore not the slightest resemblance to the fine highways of to-day. The development of the country in so few. years had been amazing. ■ At school in the 70’s and 80’s the children had to “make a good deal of their own fun,” said Mr. Syme, but. thebe was plenty of scope, and they enjoyed life quite as much as, if not better than, the children of to-day. The boys played football; hockey, and cricket, and had Roman rings and bars on which to amuse themselves. They were always encouraged by their teachers to play their games in a spirit of friendly rivalry, “for the game's sake,” and that advice was of great assistance to them in later years. Distance seemed no object in those days, said Mr. Syme. Many families lived long distances from the-school, as far away as Manutahi, Mokoia and Inaha, and many of the children rode or walked many miles to school and attended regularly. Among those whom he could recall were the Larcoms, the Ogles, the Muirs and the Campbells.