LIKES LESSONS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 3, 5 January 1932, Page 3

LIKES LESSONS

THE MODERN BOY

Boys to-day like their lessons, and scholarly pupils are respected. This sidelight on tho modern boy was provided by Mr. J. C. Airey, headmaster of the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wimborne, Dorset, who,-in his commemoration address told his audience something about the "swot" and tho athletic pupil of 1931, says the "Daily Mail."

"Thero was a period when it was the custom to scoff at tho fswot,' " said Mr. Airey. "That idea largely exists now only in the minds of people who writo stories of school life without possessing knowledge of the mentality of the modern schoolboy. ,The ovei-studi-ous type of boy is described as being pallid of countenance and puny of physique. He is depicted as being the apple of tho master's eye, the joy of his proud parents, but the most despised of his fellow-pupils. The truth is," said 'Mr. Airey, "that the present-day boy is really interested in his school work, and those who pass stiff examinations are held in high esteem." Mr. Airey imagined the author of an oldfashioned school " story being taken round a modern school. Seeing a quietmannered boy, he would say, "This is the book-worm, I suppose," but the answer would be, >"No, he is the inside left of our first eleven." The modern boy is not the boy of the story book.