HEAD TEACHERS.

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19017, 7 August 1933, Page 5

HEAD TEACHERS.

CONDEMN EDUCATION CUTS. OPINION IN BRITAIN. (From a Correspondent.) LONDON, June 23. Criticism of the educational .policy of the Government and a renewal of the demand for the raising of the age for leaving school were features of the presidential address by Mr H. F. Lee, of Seaham Harbour, at the Head Teachers’ Conference at Hastings yesterday. Mr Lee said that -in the recent statements made by the Ghanoellor of the Exchequer and others connected with the Treasury there was neither consolation nor encouragement for the educationist.

“Enthusiastic congratulations to himself and the country on its enforced habit of saving take the place of imagination and practical construction. This at a time when every practical economist in the world is proclaiming the damaging effects of excessive saving, when almost every financial authority is striving to persuade people and nations to undertake wise spending. The Chancellor, at least, must believe that the Golden Calf ought to remain the picture of the year. Treasury Dominant. “Progressive educational policy at the moment, so far as the Government is concerned, is non-existent. The reaction of the last 12 months, which has paralysed development from the nursery school to reorganisation, represents the domination ol' the Treasury over the Board of Education. There was sound reason to suppose that we should be better off to-day if we had possessed the foresight and courage to keep our children longer at school, instead of plunging them into an Industrial system which already could not employ two and a half million of its workers.

“There never was a time when !f was so urgently necessary on social, educational and economic grounds that the school age should be raised. To bring again under protection and supervision, on physical and mental grounds, thousands of young people who arc thrown into the ‘No man's land of State assistance’ to be exploited at every turn by unscrupulous employers, is a reform that Uic. Jiatiwi j uau JiUUtftttl io- .avrxlaaK* -

Insanitary Schools.

Critloising the attitude of the Board of Education towards new school buildings, Mr Lee pointed out that the “stop building" policy was being carried out at a time when the service still retained 1422 schools, all utterly insanitary, injurious to the health, or totally unfit for the purposes' for which they were used, when there were 400,000 building operatives out of work, and when building costs were lower than they had been for years.

But the most appalling problem was that of the unemployed child.

“The spectacle of half a million ohildren trying to enter the grounds of industry and commerce which have already thrown aside two and a half millions of its adult workers,” he said, “shows the immediate necessity for extended education." Where Axe Is Needed. Miss L. Swann (London) moved a resolution urging the raising of the school age as a “ wise measure of national economy.” Teachers were told that they had axes to grind, she said. She only wished an axe could be used where children were suffering. Children were being sent out into the world at a restless age, when each wanted carrying over one year more. Mr T. G. Boyd (Durham), who seconded, said there were good brains left behind in children who did not get scholarships for secondary schools. Others did not mature until they were fourteen, yet they were allowed to leave school. Mr Wheeler (London) said If the school age were raised it would have a beneficial effect on juvenile crime. The resolution was carried unanimously, and another was also passed urging that boy and girl wage earners should be admitted to the national insurance scheme at the statutory school-leaving age. Balancing the Moral Budget. Mr J. T. Lewis (Rhondda) said while the nation had put forward tremendous efforts to balance the. financial budget the Government paid little al tent lon to balancing our moral budget. In fact the Government did all in its power lo discourage those who were trying to uplift character. If they took care of character the cash would take care of itself. The moral fibre of hundreds of thousands of our young people was gradually deteriorating as a result or economic stress and lack of proper guidance. AU" Lewis say fine at Ills brightest

pupils, because of despondenoy and disappointment over unemployment, was standing at street corners preaching the gospel of bloody revolution. Mr P. G. Hughes (Rhondda), moving a resolution, condemning .the existence of slums, said they were foul dens'Of gargantuan stenches and diabolic factories of distorted personalities. To attribute the infantile death rate in those areas t# Divine providence was the sheerest blasphemy.

Mr W. H. Wheeler (London) moved a resolution urging legislation to prevent children attending dog racing tracks. On a recent visit to a London track, he said, he saw ii children, seven of whom were girls. The dogs wefe cared for far better than some of the children In his charge.