MORAL WELFARE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 170, 20 October 1941, Page 6

MORAL WELFARE

EDUCATIONAL NEED FOR CHIL-

DREN OF DOMINION

SERIOUS JUVENILE CRIME

Stating that 15000 New Zealand children appeared before children's courts every year, Mr K. F. Hemingway, of Patea, chairman of the Wanganui Education Board, at the monthly meeting of the board said that more attention should be paid to the moral welfare of children in the Dominion. He advocated greater emphasis on character building in education.

"I have been asking myself lately," said Mr Hemingway, "if we, as members of a body which is largely responsible l'or the moral, as well as the intellectual and physical training of the children in our large district during the most impressionable years of tlieir lives, could not do something more than is being done in the way of character building.

"To 1113' way of thinking this is the most important part of the training of any child. The GovernorGeneral, Sir Cyril Newall, hit the nail fairly and squarely on the head recently at the annual meeting of the Boy Scouts' Association in Wellington, when he declared that what Hitler had done in Germany we could do Avitli our boys and girls, only directing their act iA*i ties in the right channel.

"I,t should not be impossible for representatives of the various religious denominations, assisted by the leading educationalists, to get- together and devise a scheme on the lines suggested by the GovernorGeneral, by means of which the children of this country will grow up with a greater appreciation of the value of honour and truth.

'T believe implicitly that if we as a nation place more value on things material than on things spiritual, we shall lie on the downward instead of the upward grade.

"The figures .continued in the report of the Child Wei I arc Department furnish food for much thought" continued Mr Hemingway, 'if more attention were paid to the moral welfare of the children, it would not be necessary to bring just on 3000 children each year before the children's courts in this sparsely populated country. The number is far too great. "We are proud of the high .standard el' our national character, which is the character of the majority of those'who go to make up the nation. A, tremendous responsibility rests upon tlie shoulders of each and every one of us for according as we act individually so is the standard of our national character either raised or lowered. This is a responsibility every child should be made to realise more than is the ease at the present time.. The board has led the Avay in many educational matters, and my liopc is that it may lead the way in the future in the direction indicated bj r the GovernorGeneral."