CURRENT TOPICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6071, 7 January 1898, Page 3

CURRENT TOPICS.

♦ — 1 The experiment that Mr practical Baldwin is just how trying schools. at Governor's Bay with some fifty of his senior scholars serves to direct one's attention to foreign methods of schooling. The English Education Department has just issued a huge book of seven hundred pages, containing a series of twenty-six special reports on British and foreign education. From time to time we have dwelt on the various prominent features of the German system, with its commercial aspects, its school journeys •dnd its technical sections, and Mr Baldwin's experiment is simply a reproduction of what, has been an annual event in German schools for years past. The book is a perfect mine of information, and one or two points s are of special interest just at present. We notice that the Educational Institute now sitting in Dunedin has directed its attention to the sewing question. In the Belgian report this is fully dealt with. In that industrious little country they do not babble of inspection, nor. do they turn up their noses at practical wort. The Belgian girls have to learn how to patch and mend torn garments, to darn stockings, often their own, if the teacher spies a hole. The classes are. divided into sections of six or eight. One division brings the family stocKitigs, tablecloths, or towels to be darned; another brings men's trousers to be patched or reseated, another the dresses of older children to be cut down and refashioned, and so on. The work is not " fancy," nor yet pretty, but it is eminently useful. Then again, in cooking Belgium takes the lead. The girls are made, as far as possible, to do the marketing themselves. They are given the simplest apparatus, and have only the cheap stoves to be found in workmen's cottages. No patent ranges suitable for the highclass hotel, or patent gas stoves suitable for no human being, are permitted for their distraction. They have to prepare a dinner for six persons at a cost not exceeding 2-J-d per head. Finally, they must invariably eat the product of their labours. And the % children do not die ; on the contrary, this practical method is having very beneficent results in many working men's homes. '

Since ' tife Seddon Goruskin vernment. has begun the ■•* ' ori attempt to "pauperise" thrift. the humble toilers in the same manner, though not nearly to the same extent, as Supreme Court judges and other high officials are "pauperised," that is, by providing pensions for them in their old age, a- good' deal has been heard from certain quarters about the inestimable value of thrift — on the part of the labouring classes — and of the lamentable results sure to follow if that priceless virtue .were iv any way impaired, which, we are assured, it would be — again in the working classes; — if an old age pension scheme were brought into operation. The gentlemen who talk and write in this way might, perhaps, be brought to a different way of looking at the matter by a careful study of what, John Buskin had to say on the subject nigh . upon forty years ago. "Nothing," said he, "appears" to me at once more ludicrous and more melancholy than the way the people of the present age usually talk about the morals of labourers. You hardly ever address a labouring man upon his prospects in life without quietly assuming that he is to possess, at starting, as a small moral capital to begin with, the virtue of Socrates, the philosophy of Plato, and the heroism of Epaminondas. 'Be assured, my good man/ you say to him, that if you work steadily for ten hours a day all your life long, and if you drink nothing hut waj;er, or the very mildest beer, and live on very plain food, and never lose your temper, and go to church every Sunday, and never grumbl<f, nor swear, and always keep your clothes decent, and rise early, and ,use every opportunity of improving yourself, you will get on very well, and never come to the parish/ All this is exceedingly true ; but .before giving this advice so confidently it would be well if we sometimes tried it practically on ourselves, and spent a year or so at some hard manual labour, not of an entertaining kind ; ploughing or digging, for instance,' with a very moderate allowance of beer, nothing but bread and cheese for dinneis no papers nor muffins in, the morning, i° sofas nor magazines at night, one, srafU room for parlour and kitchen, and a lajge family of children always in the nriddlf of the floor. If we found we could, itftfer these circumstances, enact Socrate* Ol " Epaminondas. entirely to our own .Satisfaction, we should be somewhat' ]«sti-

fied in requiring the same behaviour from our poorer neighbours." The advocates of thrift — on the part of the -working classes — would do well to ponder these utterances of the gfeat writer. Perhaps his scathing words may open their, eyes to a sense of the transparent humbug which underlies their platitudes. The truth is, as Ruskin perceives, arid the opponents of old age pensions do not, or rather affect not to, perceive, that the working classes are like other men; they have the failings of humanity. It is fashionable, in certain circles, to talk much of their want of thrift, but it would be hard to prove that, as a class, they are more unthrifty than other sections of the community, and to preach thrift to them when they ask for a pension for their old age is indeed to give them a stone when they ask for bread.

It is not at all unusual in a the history of Highland remarkable regiments to come across coincidence, instances of conspicuous bravery Jon the part of the pipers, and the now famous incident of the heights of Dargai is not altogether without parallel. Our readers will remember that during that much-disputed fight a. piper belonging to the Gordon Highlanders was shot through both ankles. Despite his wounds he sat and played his pipes amidst a hail of bullets. Mr J. Mackay, editor of the Celtic Monthly, writing recently to a Ross-shire paper, makes some interesting remarks on the incident. When the Gordon Highlanders were at Maryhill he " was shown over the place *by Lieutenant Lamont, who met a soldier's death on these very Dargai heights.' I«Ir Mackay saw among the regimental treasures the chanter and drones of an old bagpipe which had been played by one of the regimental pipers in the Battle of Vittoria, under exactly similar circumstances to those now recorded. In our columns yesterday morning appeared an excellent account of the whole affray, and our readers Avill be able to appreciate the' spirit that inspired the Highland pipers. After the battle of Vittoria Dr Charles Mackay wrote some stirring lines on the heroic deed of Piper Clark, and it is remarkable that these lines apply in every respect to the present act of bravery, except that in the eavlip.r battle the 92nd were retreating. A Highland, piper, shot through both Ms feet; Lay oil the ground in agonising pain ; The cry was raised " The Highlanders retreat— They run ; they fiy ! they rally not again !" The piper heard, and rising on his arm Clutched to his heart the pipes he loved so well, And blew a blast— a dirgo-hke shrill alarm, That quickly changed to the all-jubilant swell Of Tullochgoruin. Swift as lightning flash, Or fire in stubble, the tumultuous sound Thrilled through theclaiismen's hearts, and with a da=h „ Of unreflecting valour, at one bound . They tnrued upon their hot pursuing foes, v And faced them with one wild tempestuous cheer, That almost drowned the musio as it rose Defiant o'er the field, long, loud, and clear ! Scotland was in it, and the days of old, When, to the well-known pibrochs or' their sr*es, They danced the exultant reels on hillsides cold, Or warmed their hearts with uatnolic fires. The startled enemy, in sudden dread, Staggered and paused, then, pale with terror, fled! The clansmen followed, hurline shout on shout In martini madness on their hopeless rout. 'Twas but five minutes ere the set of s\ju, And ere it sank the victory was won ! : Glory and honour, all that mep can crave, Be fhine, 0 piper, bravest of the brave! " Another similar instance occurred at Yimiera. when Piper Stewatt, of the 71st Highlanders, fell, his thigh broken by a musket-shot. Sitting on his knapsack, he continued to inspire his comrades with a pibroch, crying, "De'il hae me, lads, if ye shall want for music !" It has been suggested that the Dargai hero should be rewarded, as was Piper Stewart, by the presentation of a special set of silver bagpipes. • . ■ .