OLD SCHOOL TIE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 123, 27 May 1942, Page 6

OLD SCHOOL TIE

TRADITION DEFENDED

NEW ZEALANDER'S VIEWS

"It was refreshing for these wearers and teachers of the Ola School Tie tradition" to hear what we had to say, and it must have been interesting for them to learn of another viewpoint from us, writes Sergeant-Observer F. Colwyn Jones in a letter from England. Sergeant Jones, who is a Master of Arts of the University of New Zealand, recently availed himself of the hospitality of . Lady Frances Ryder s organisation which arranges holidays for overseas fighting men in England. With a companion of the Royal Air Force, he was allocated to be a guest of "the headmaster of Clifton College, Bristol, one of the great public schools of England. There he was able to study public school life at first hand. "Each evening," writes Sergeant Jones, "the headmaster would have several of his senior boys into dinner. Over coffee and after coffee we would have the most serious arguments about everything under the sun. We found that the boys did not fear to differ materially from their headmaster if they wanted to. In fact, their attitude, their independence I mean, was astonishing in lads so young.

Discussion With Surgeon "One night the headmaster had the school's surgeon down as a guest. He was one of Bristol's famous surgeons. He piled into us over our views of the Pacific situation. We told him what we thought about the falsity and the paucity of the information given Australia and New Zealand as to the situation in the Far East. He did not agree with us over some aspects which we presented. We told him that while none could disagree with the broad lines of Britain's policy, we based our criticism on the fact that our countries had not been informed of the weakness of the defence in the Far East. "Then we had a really good argument. We said that we aid not think that England was getting down to the job of war with her full potentialities, and cited reasons, We found that the boys agreed with us and did not hesitate to say so either to their headmaster or their headmaster's guest, distinguished man though he was. As I say, their maturity amazed us. "Then we said that we thought that England did not understand the meaning of democracy. We added that the standard of education in the masses was deplorable, infinitely lower than in New Zealand, which is incontrovertibiy true, It was a bit of a shock to hear the headmaster agreeing with us. In fact, he is something of a social reformer.

Poise of Authority "The opinion we formed after being at the plaee a week wag that what England needs is not to drag down the standard and tradition of the great public schools, but to lift! other schools to that level. Theses boys have something. They have< background and environment. They have the poise and the custom of authority. They have an inherent belief and regard for the decencies of life, summed up in the words, It isn't done or It isn't cricket.' They were a thoroughly decent lot of fellows, quite the equal of our own secondary school products. "We found the same sympathetic view as to the need for lifting the educational standard expressed by the housemasters, to whom we talked just as freely. In fact, we did a lot of free talking, while we were there. Our housemaster, Mr. Muirhead, whose rooms we visited and found to be full of lovely antiques, spoke about the crushing bonds of tradition. All the worst aspects of that had to be broken down, he said, before England could rise! He thought that the war would do much to help in the long run."