TOWN-PLANNING AND COLLEGES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 209, 29 May 1919, Page 6

TOWN-PLANNING AND COLLEGES

Sir,—Allow me to thank you for the information published by you in response to my last. It is easy to understand the perplexities of the Board of Governors'regarding their Girls' College, with its "pocket handkerchief playground" and densely-populated surround" ings. But with the Hoys' College tho case is different in this respect, that the building-ground i* there—yet noting k being erected. I'or some reason unexpressed the figures suppliod you for the period I mentioned are taken in each case from the last term of the year, when, the attendance is at a minimum. As a result of inquiries of my own I learn that this year tho total enrolment nt the Boys' College is about 650, or. fifty per cent, greater than tho nuniberS for'l9l6. I am further assured that tho existing accommodation is now taxed to the utmost, so that if the authorities are faced eight months hence with an additional hundred applicants for admission they will be forced to turn them away.

The colleges exist to serve an area which reaches far beyond Wellington city. In three years their attendance has increased fifty per cent. Yet no far as I am aware their boarding accommodation is no greater now than it was in 1916. Which means that as far as <heir country constituency is concerned the secondary schools of this capital afford, n limited and stationary eupply in answer to an ever-growing doniand. Small wonder that inoro progressive institutions, both here and elsewhere, that have adopted a policy of bricks and mortor, find their numbers continually recruited by pupils who wight be provided for by a more progressive and far-seeing action on the part of the board and the Education Department.—l am, etc., PARENT.