GYPSY SCHOOL «N UZHOROD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 67, 21 March 1938, Page 3

GYPSY SCHOOL «N UZHOROD

r pHE most Interesting school in Ruthcnia is the gypsy school in Uzhorod, the only one of its kind in the world. Just outside Uzhorod there is a large gypsy camp, a complete self-con-tained village with its own mayor, and there the gypsies have built a school for their children. There are about forty of them, gay, vivacious, lazy, extremely musical and immediately bored. They are taught by special methods, with constant changes of subject—ten minutes reading, five minutes singing, five min-

utes play, ten minutes writing. minutes dancing. (They have their choir, conducted by a little boy of nine, and their orchestra). No one thing can hold their attention for longer than five to ten minutes. Many of them are beautiful, though with a far from immature beauty, and their five-year-old faces are as gaudily rouged and painted as that of any street walker. It i' scarcely surprising, one reflects, tha the average life of a school teacher ir Ruthenia is five years.—Joan Graffiti, it Fortnightly, London.