THE MUDDLING DEPARTMENT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 45, Issue 13794, 26 March 1919, Page 4

THE MUDDLING DEPARTMENT.

The Defence Department is a law unto itself. It is also a department that holds the record for muddling. It is, further, held by the public in the greatest contempt. The.case which canio oefore the S.M. Court in Eketahuna recently in connection with the failure of somo District High School pupils to attend parade, provides further evidence of the stupidity and. ciasg ignorance of the" J>epartment or its responsible officers. The Eketahuna paper, commenting on tho matter, says:—The-case presents somo rather unsctisfactory features. It ia true that the cases were eventually dismissed, but it was established that attendance was compulsory, in this matter two State Departments are in direct conflict, and it is here that tho greatest unfairness exists, the pupils and the teaching staff being sacrificed to the military aspect. The Education regulations distinctly lay it down that pupils attending parades shall be counted as absent at school, and consequently a black mark appears against them. The matter of attendance, however, is not the chief point. Work at schools has to be mapped out ahead, and it can readily bo understood that tho collapse of. a class ou a half-day, tho advent of which is uncertain, cannot but have a very dislocating effect upon tho work of that class. . . It is rather curiously laid down by the Defence Authorities that while the training of a senior cadot commences on the Ist day of June in the year in which he attains the age of fourteen years, he is exempted from parades if attending a primary school, but nt if he is attending a District High School in the secondary department. Why the exception is made in the one instance and not in the other, possibly only the Defence Department itself could explain.