The Waipawa Mail MONDAY, JULY 26, 1937. PASSING NOTES.

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXV, Issue 64, 26 July 1937, Page 2

The Waipawa Mail MONDAY, JULY 26, 1937. PASSING NOTES.

SCHOOL GRADING. The New Education Fellowship Conference just concluded at Wellington has been an outstanding success. The numerous lectures delivered by the world’s foremost men in matters educational have been followed with deep interest by representatives of the teaching profession gathered from all parts of the Wellington, Hawke’s Bay, and West Coast education districts, and it is a fair assumption that the standard of teaching will show an all-round improvement as one result of the conference. Condemnation of the present system of grading teachers was not to be wondered at. It is by no means perfect, contributing as it does to a continuous state of unrest in the profession. But although the system has many drawbraeks neither the Education Department nor the Teachers’ Institute has been able to evolve a better, nor did the visitors who were whole-hearted in their condemnation give a great deal of assistance in the matter. In the light of such criticism, the question is not whether the present system is an advance on something that prevailed years ago, but, as the Minister of Education remarked, whether the teachers are prepared to step out and get something better. CLERIC AND HIS CONSCIENCE!" When the Rev. Anderson Jardine went over to France to officiate at the wedding of the Duke of Windsor he had the sympathy of a very large section of the public. He has, however, wholly alienated that sympathy by his recent public pronouncements. When he talks of ‘ ‘ future generations reading of an archbishop who cursed instead of praying, of a shrinking, demented priesthood and one little cleric who obeyed his conscience,” he is simply speaking for effect, and we very much doubt if the Duke of Windsor will appreciate the ill-ad-vised efforts of his new champion. A most interesting phase of the question is the poor reception which the “little cleric with a conscience” is receiving in Canada. A short while ago there was a feeling that Canada was not quite one hundred per cent, patriotic, but the difficulty which the Rev. Jardine is experiencing in renting public halls and the small attendances at his lectures indicate that the heart of Canada is sound in its loyalty to the British Throne. FROM CRADLE TO SCHOOL. As an American visitor suggested and as the Plunket Society has already perceived there is a gap to be bridged between the health care of infants and the supervision that begins with the school years. The bridge is most important, for it is in this period that many of the wrong feeding, clothing, and general care habits may have a beginning, with expensive consequences when the school dental and medical inspection begins. Already the Plunket Society has begun to build the bridge, but its construction is not easy. Mothers are invited to continue in touch with the Plunket nurses, but not all of them see the same need for guidance when the one-time babies are fast developing into young children. Nor is there the organisation, as in the schools, for easily maintaining contact. These, however, are difficulties similar to those encountered when the Plunket Society first began its work for mothers and babies. They were overcome as the benefits of the system became known. Similarly the benefits of ante-natal supervision have been gradually recognised. There remains, however, one problem: that of finance. Whether the gap between Plunket babies and school infants is to be bridged by the school service taking in pre-school ages or the Plunket system carrying on, there will require to be provision to meet the demand as it grows. The more completely this provision is made the better will be the foundation for school health—and the lighter will be the cost of the school health service.