Local and General

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 260, 20 January 1941, Page 4

Local and General

Week-end Rainfall. Mr PL Muscutt, of Kopeopeo, reports rainfall rccorcled over the week end as follows: Selurday .31 inches; Sunday ,37, making a total for the month of .68 inches. Maori Volunteers for Camp. The following Maori volunteers I'rom iluatoki left for camp with the latest draft from this district: Tua Numia Rangi, T'oto Rangiaho, Tahoe Trainor, Hihi Timoti, Claude Natuku, Jack Nohokau. Outsize in Rats. A giant rat measuring just over 18 inches from nose to tailtip was captured by a local motor firm last Saturday. The' rodent was found struggling in a drum half-filled with oil and was quickly dispatched by compulsory drowning. Emergency Fire Drill. The need for regular emergency fire drill in schools, particularly the efficient evacuation of children l'rom the classrooms to allotted points in the school grounds, was the subject of a recent Education Department circular to education, high school and college boards. The department recently asked secondary school boards and school

committees to co-operate with emergency precautions organisations in making available school buildings as evacuation centres in an emergency, and consideration is now being given, according to the circular, to the protection of school children during school hours when under the charge of the teachers. True Education. "There is no' education in New Zealand," said the Rev. M. Mitson, ivliCP speaking at the Student Christian Movement Conference at Burt- 1 edin. "There is only technical training. We train boys and girls, to be clerks and farmers and* teachers and doctors and lawyers, but we do not educate them. Education is the inculcation of a way of living. The primary concern of true education is the chief end of man. Canon Peter Green has said that Ave have taught people to write, and all that they do with the accomplishment ?s to fill up betting slips. Similarly we teach people to read, and all< they do with the accomplishment is to read the captions to the pic- 1 tures in illustrated magazines. Supremely important for true living are true purposes or ends, and therefore the fundamental requirement for the building of a Christian social order is a vital Christian faitiL."

Sharks,

There are pienty ol' shark stories every summer, but sharks which normally come ashore about New Zealand are jnild in disposition and harmless enough—Very different from sharks on the Australian coast. Most shark stories here, then, are thrilling in the telling,' if flat enough at their moments, but a member of the staff of the Wellington City Council brought back a shark fact from Makara that is the. exception.. On New Year's Day his son dived from some rocks and came up to hear shrieks of "Shark" "He believed it, and put his scrapp ers in properly," his father said. He readied the landing rock with a foot to spare from a definite attack. The shark, they believe, was at I least a twelve-footer and hung about the rocks so long that they had time to put a quite inadequate gaff into it, and for someone to bring a rifle, when the shots sent it oft', apparently unharmed. A girl, a poor SAvimmer, was to have dived in with the boy, but fortunately hesitated.