EDUCATION AND SPORT.

Waipa Post, Volume XIX, Issue 1074, 7 April 1921, Page 4

EDUCATION AND SPORT.

IT must always be comforting for those men in public office who make unpopular statements to have the press as their scapegoat. To them the press is a means, and, if need be, it is a shelter. Time after time the press is used to ventilate opinion and suggestion. That is its essential function. and there thus comes the means by which public opinion on policies and projects may be heard and tested. But, as frequently as not, if criticism is unfavourable or likely to cause trouble to the electioneer at election time, the suggestion of erroneous or misleading press report is the timehonoured excuse. Just now some of the members of the Te Awamutu School Committee are seeking a getaway from public criticism because of their condemnation of sport and recreation at the school. At a recent meeting of the committee a suggestion to this effect was made, and the pressman duly chronicled the fact that “ such at least was the view expressed by some of the speakers.” Finding that public opinion is opposed to their views, these speakers now sanction a resolution of “ protest against erroneous report.” There the matter stands. At least some of the committeemen have stultified themselves by their own conduct. They did not speak in' wholesale condemnation of sport, but simply (pleaded for reason—that sport should not become the main consideration of life. There is reason in all things, and sport, if kept within the bounds of reason, is to be encouraged. At the Te Awamutu school, we believe, reason has not been exceeded, the desire very rightly being to develop the scholars physically as well as mentally. iSport can bring out some of the finest characteristics—it can also develop some of the worst. And there are in the community some who would go to excess and introduce much of what is undesirable under the guise of sport. But, in pleading for reason, is there any just cause why those members of the committee should have fallen back on their old and trusted bulwark—the press—in avoiding responsibility for a sentiment which was not wholly popular? The school committee should learn to practise those high ideals—to say what it means and to mean what it says—which the process of schooling is inculcating in the scholars. If reason is the only desire,. where is the need to evade further discussion?