JUSTICE 10 SCHOOL CHILDREN,

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3070, 4 May 1917, Page 6

JUSTICE 10 SCHOOL CHILDREN,

Sir,—My opinion of the Efficiency Board's proposal, suggesting that the bigger boys and girls attending secondary and techuical schools should do some useful work during their Christmas holidays—which are, 1 believe, to bo extended to nearly three months, if the above proposal is accepted by the Education Department —is a shameful disgrace to tiiem. The very fact of the suggestion .that boys' of fourteen and fifteen should be compelled to sacrifice the" little education that their parents in many cases are struggling to' give them, for the simple reason that when they, return to school they will be physically unfit for their schooling. It is also a well-known fact that the majority of'>children forget a very great amount of their work during lengthy holidays. A week is not sufficient rest for a child's "urain between the other terms, and nervous strain and brain fag eventuate. If workers are ,■ still so scarce, Tiow is it that race meetings and all sports generally are still permitted, and the totalisator returns have increased by thousands of pounds this year compared with other years, which tends to show that the attendance cannot be any less. Also there are still scores of strong, able-bodied agents (men) motoring round the country trying to persuade people either to buy or sell, out of which transaction they may make a commission in preference to taking their share of farm work. A person only needs to visit hotels and clubs to see the hundreds of young and middleaged men, pertaining to all ranks of life, who spend a considerable amount of their time leaning over hotel bars, drinking and shouting, and loitering in the. comfortable commercial rooms. They are a disgrace to their sex, more especially in war time, while others are seen playing billiards and gambling inthe clubs. And yet the Efficiency Hoard has the audacity to- try and deprive children of their, education and ruin their health as well, while the above state of affairs is still the order of the day. What will our soldiers in the trenches think when they hear that it is the children who are to make the first sacrifice caused by their absence on the battlefields.—l am, etc., A PARENT. , .