SCHOOL MAGAZINES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19379, 31 December 1932, Page 19

SCHOOL MAGAZINES

CHAT FROM THE SCHOOLROOM. There are said to be more newspapers to the square mile in New Zealand than any other part of the Empire. It is perhaps natural that the characteristic should show early signs, hence the number of school magazines in this part of the world. Four of these interesting productions are just to hand—from the Auckland Girls’ Grammar School, the Auckland Boys’ Grammar School, the Sacred Heart College, and the Cornwall Park Public School—one of the few State institutions that has the magazine habit. The secondary schools have their magazines printed; Cornwall Park’s contribution to ephemeral school literature is typewritten and stencilled (including the illustrations), but is none the less interesting from this evidence of economy.

“The Magazine of Cornwall Park School” is a sixteen-page production bound in a cover outside which is pasted a “sticker” of the school arms (the same as Cornwall’s) and its motto, “Honour, not honours.” The contents comprise stories, sketches, school news and school persiflage, and poetry. Among the last-mentioned are lines on “Blossoms,” “Knitting,” “The Clover Field,” and “Wattle,” showing unexpected facility in such young children. In a page of limericks those who think New Zealand should cultivate a New Zealand school of poetry will be interested in:

“There once was an ancient old Maori Who lived in a forest of kauri, And as for his rent, He paid not a cent, But depended on Nature’s great dowry.”

GIRLS’ GRAMMAR. Girls have more imagination than boys, so it is not surprising to find in the “Auckland Girls’ Grammar School Magazine” a subtlety that is lacking in the boys’ journals. For instance, no one but a girl could have written this extract from a sketch called “The Charm of Auckland”: “Every morning as I hurry along the road, with a tram which I know I cannot possibly catch gaining on me every minute, I wish bitterly that the section was several stops nearer. Every evening i give thanks as I walk along that same road, for there, through a gap between the houses, is a glorious view stretching far away to distant hills and a gleam of water. To most people it is the Manukau Heads, but to the chosen few it is an enchanted land. Sometimes it is faint and elusive beneath a shifting mist, sometimes a symphony in silver and blue, blue hills and sky, silver sea and silvered mountains of snowy clouds; but always at sunset it is an unforgetable scene, something that is to be treasured among the lovely things of life. To me it is the spirit of Auckland, a haunting loveliness.” The humour—always a strong point in school “mags.”—is more dainty in the girls’ lucubrations, and the poetry shows a much more delicate touch. In “Song of the Town-Dweller,” one of the IVa. girls sings:

And if ever by chance I have left the town For even half a day,

I feel as much joy in coming back As though I’d been years away. O, countryman of his fields may dream, And who loves it live by the shore; But as long as my heart can beat, I’ll ask The grey old town —no more.

FROM THE SACRED HEART. The “Sacred Heart College Magazine is a well-compiled record of the year’s doings in the many fields of activity covered by this school. The collegians are strong in poetry. One budding poet who, like the knitting girl, uses the metre of “The Song of the Shirt,” unburdens his soul thus: Work! Work! Work! Till my brain is heavy as lead. Work! Work! Work! Till up to the neck I’m fed; French and Latin and Maths. And problems that won’t ‘come out, Till I sit in a stupor over my work And wake to a teacher’s shout. With the simple title, “Ode” (inspired by sounds heard any evening in the music rooms), a lad who evidently regards music very much as an “extra,” protests against “loud violins, their comets and twanging banjos and