A NEW SCHOOL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10104, 16 March 1911, Page 3

A NEW SCHOOL.

FOUND ATION LAID TO-DAY. . ADDRESS BY MINISTER OF EDUCATION. There was a large attendance of the public at the sit© of the new school in SomsrfHd Street, Sydenham, this afternoon, when the foundation stone was laid by the Hon G. Fowkls, Minister of Education. Amongst those present were several local members of Parliament, representatives of the North Canterbury Education Board and other educational institutions, and of the teaching profession. The fact that the ceremony took place on the weekly half-holiday, in splendid weather, was an important factor in the vuccess of the ceremony. In layinec the foundation stone Mr Fowlds "sai3 that the demand for that new suburban school originated in the growth of the school population in the Beckenham and South Spreydon districts, and the disinclination felt by parents to send numbers of young children a long walk to neighbouring schools through streets congested with traffic and traversed by a frequent electric tram service. Tho fulfilment of the demand for the school had to proceed slowly because in the. multiplicity of claims upon the Government of a similar kind there were always to be found cases of greater hardship. It must be remembered that in comparison with what had to be endured by settlers, in the outlying parts of settlement throughout the dominion and the long distances that country children frequently had to travel on almost invariably bad roads, the difficulties which the people of that favoured locality near Christchurch found so distressing faded into insignificance. The distances_ in Christchurch were in no case prohibitive, and the roads and other conveniences wore excellent. There was, further, the difficulty that the Sydenham School, standing within quite a reasonable distance, already contained accommodation for not only all the children that were attending, but also for a good many more. The {Sydenham School contained class-room accommodation for some 1800 children, and though admittedly that was far too large an attendance to be successfully dealt with in one establishment, still, as a matter of business, the Government had to look twice at a proposal to abandon a large part of that accommodation and reproduce it elsewhere. That problem, from various causes, not infrequently arose in other places, where schools were no great distance apart. A movement or the population from the central portions of a town to its suburbs frequently resulted in claims for new schools that would have the effect of leaving in the older schools a great quantity of waste space. Even so transitory a circumstance as the influence of a popular teacher was occasionally a cause of considerable embarrassment to the Government which had to provide funds for the enlargement of the favoured school, or to incur the odium of insisting that the locality must make use of all the available aocomimodation before asking for an extension. Nevertheless it had to be recognised that when the number of children concerned became large, tho aspect of the case changed and that theoretical considerations lost their force when weighed against a mass of individual inconyenience. It was estimated that tho immediate attendance at that school would bo about 200, so that at length it became apparent that the grant of a convenience that affected so large a number of children could not reasonably be longer delayed. The difficulty in respect to the excess accommodation at Sydenham School had been solved by the consideration that some of the rooms had about reached the end of 'their existence, and that, when the time came for removing them, they would not .need to be r£ placed. The new school had 3-108 square feet of class-room space, providing for an average attendance of about •300. Towards its cost the Government had contributed £2855 10s, including £235 10s as half-cost of the site. Mr Fowlds then laid the foundation stone, first placing under it a sealed bottle containing a history of the movement for the erection of the school. Afternoon tea was then served by the ladies of the school.