EDUCATION AND THE REFERENDUM

Wanganui Chronicle, 23 July 1949, Page 4

EDUCATION AND THE REFERENDUM

THE protest made by the Wanganui Education Board at the referendum being taken in public schools when halls are available in the vicinity is well timed. There is too much said in favour of education, and too much done to impede its progress through the year. A holiday from school is all too welcome to the pupils, for what boy would not rather go fishing than go to school! lint that is not a justification for reducing his school hours throughout the year. There are sufficient breaks in the school year in any case and when to these are added the dislocations due to epidemics and the like, to individual eases of illness, it is obvious enough that the scholars have sufficient handicaps already. The holding of the referendum on a. working day and the holding of general elections on other than a. Saturday fits in with the psychology of the schoolboy who would rather go fishing. In view of the lack of supplies in many important fields of production this schoolboy outlook by the adult population of this Dominion is to be deplored. The playway in school has been decried on the ground that it does not fit the scholar for a life of work. The question which must be asked in view of the Government’s consistent, use of a working day for elections and like occasions is whether the protest against the playway is very much belated. With Saturday now as a full shutdown from work there is no excuse for anyone not voting on that day were elections to be held on that day of the week. It would seem that the Government is determined that lhe least responsible elements in the community shall be given first consideration in this matter.