SANDY'S CORNER

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 January 1948, Page 4

SANDY'S CORNER

iitniiiiHiiniiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiniiihiiiiiiaiiH SCHOOL AT HOME In the coming “school-at-home era" which dawns next Monday against the flaring background ot socialism, which presupposes that all men are equal, our advice to parents is to take on that superior look of seeming to know something, yet, knowing little, must take refuge in an atmosphere of rugged silence. We know wnal Is likely to happen. You'll be asked anything, from "Why did Henry behead Anne?” to ’‘What docs the editor mean when he writes in this mornings leadei that all men are equal?” This “school-at-home era" will demand of all parents encyclopaedic skill. We ettn imagine how much patience Mum will waste on such a question, “Why did Henry behead Anne?" more especially if she is rubbing shirts in the washtub. “If any man ought to be beheaded it’s your father!" We can hear that coming through the washhouse steam. "Ring him up at the office." And we can hear the small voice on the 'phone asking the Inevitable question: "Why did Henry behead Anne?" And our answer will depend largely on whether the sixpence out in the balance at the office has been found.

Few will be immune. Train advices in the railway are likely to reach fathers driving engines: “Why did Henry behead Anno —or did he?" Butchers and bakers, drapers and grocers, chemists and doctors, the rich and the poor, the ill and the well, the brainy and the dull—they’ll all get it sometime. Rugged silcnoe may prove a safe refuge. We hope so. We cannot guarantee it, of course, because we have a feeling that many a genius was robbed of the chance ot blossoming fully by not knowing history—what happened In October, 1805, for instance. Our Up if that question is pu' to you Is to let tin on your rugged silence sufficiently to tell the child to ring the Income Tax Department. It lives in a seml-goldcn edifice called Trafalgar Buildings, where, we suppose, they have a telescope and a glass eye, which they can bring together and make as effective as they were made in March, 1801. Take good hold of yourselves, you parents—be the strong silent type you will have to be to live down this “school-at-home’ era in this century when the child should have its own way. When the era ceases to be, maybe you will be in favour of teachers getting a substantial rise in pay.