EDUCATIONAL NOTES

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16747, 13 March 1926, Page 11 (Supplement)

EDUCATIONAL NOTES

PRIMARY RULES OF HEALTH. (By “Dominie.”) At the annual meeting of the Incorporated Association of Headmasters, at Guildhall, London, Sir Bruce BrucePorter, ill an address on Hie health of boys in schools, said there was nothing more sad when hoys or girls had passed for valuable posts than that they were found on medical examina;tion to be quite unfit to take up the post for which they had qualified mentally. He had not infrequently been consulted about such cases,- and in the vast majority had only been able to confirm the opinion given. The first essentials of health were attention to four primary rules—fresh air, fresh water, fresh food, and a good drainage system. Most of the ills which were found in C 3 peoplo could be traced to neglect of one or more of these rules. Eye strain was the commonest cause of headaches. Any child holding his hook at an awkward angle, or too close or too far, should be brought to the notice of the school medical officer, as it would cause nervous irritability to use the eyes without glasses in these cases, and mild defects were often worse, as the strain was cumulative. The habits of health, like those of morality, were the results of early training.

He would like to see arrangements for a substantial midday meal for all children .who come from districts too great to allow of them going home for a meal. Money spent in ensuring feeding and care in childhood would he saved a hundred-fold later in life. He might he asked where all the money was to come from. Ills answer was they would save it later in their hospitals and Poor Law' costs, and earn it in the increased efficiency of the next and rising generation. There were many hundreds of thousands tO'-day in our land incapable of earning enough to keep themselves because of mental and physical deprivation in childhood.

Referring to the question of children with heart disease, lie said it was serious to allow' boys wiio had had rheumatic fever to go in for violent games, it was essential that boys should play gomes, even when they had heart delects, hut they must be supervised and graduated according to the effect. The desks and seats in schools should be of sizes to suit the pupils, and should lie adjustable. Nothing was worse than to allow’ children to crouch over low' desks . on uncomfortable scats. They would produce stooping shoulders, cramped chests, and curvature of the spine. The length of the class would depend to some extent on Hie subject, and should never extend beyond Hie time in which the average normal child's attention could be fixed, it w’as very difficult for any healthy child to sit still long, and for the average class and the average child 30 minutes was Hie limit. Home work depended on the child and the home, it was cruel to set homo tasks to a child who lived in a poor neighbourhood, where Ihc housing problem was so great that there was not a quid spot for the child lo study in. Importance of a Hobby.

If a child’s health he maintained and he was encouraged to keep physically lit he would be brighter and more capable of absorbing his teaching, and K lie joined some boys’ movement like the Scouts or spent some time out of school earning some hobby, which would be a godsend in bis adult days, it would be of far greater value than home lessons. He often met a man past middle life who could not give up because lie had been taught nothing else; he had no single hobby. Many men made themselves a nuisance in business, which they might hand over to somebody else, but they could not do so, because they had not been taught a hobby. Most of their boys were in a position to enjoy their holidays, but the ordinary poor child was much happier at school, and if they could arrange for children to lie cared for during Hie holidays by voluntary workers, who would lake them to the parks, museums, etc., it would ho a different problem. Ho wistied some organisation could be formed lo go into fills matter. For flic teachers, lie thought lit) weeks’ work quite long enough. Imparting knowledge to the young was one of Ihe hardest tasks lie could imagine—-far more exhausting than manual labour. All late hours, whether in boys' clubs or cinemas, wore had. Children required much more sleep than grown-ups, and should always go to lied early. Children were horn with no moral sense; it was a matter of training; and so games were essential in Hie formation of character. He would be sorry to see that great expression "playing Ihc game” go out of use in this country. P. was essentially an English expression. The .liny who was taught in school to “play tiie game" would lie a much finer character than the hoy who did not, receive lhal teaching. (Cheers.) Replying to a question on the subject of smoking by boys, Sir Bruce Bruce-Porler said lie began smoking when lie was a hoy, with Hie result that he had lo give it up for 20 years, when lie would have liked very much lo have done if. it was foolish for boys to smoke, because it made their hearts very irritable. He thought if they told a hoy lhal. smoking "fags” or brown paper would spoil his wind and keep him out, of Hie sclinol team lie would probably not smoke.

"When 1 was a pupil teacher in Canterbury," said Mr Thwaites, headmaster of Ihc Island Bay school, Wellington, at a farewell gathering, “a pupil teacher had lo have four years’ training. We started at £2O, rising to £'f>o. When I was getting £4O I compared myself with Goldsmith's parson, ‘passing rich on £4O a year.' I went to Hie Wanganui Board, where 1 got £l7O a year. .1 I hough l from £4O to £l7O a very good Jump. 1 stayed two years in Wanganui leaching In a building .’tort by t 1 ft. The playground was used as a cricket ground on Sunday, and Iho school building for a church, and we inside could frequently hear the cricket hall lilt Iho wall."