School Excursions.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 217, 17 March 1897, Page 2

School Excursions.

The Cbristchnrch ' Press' has the following laudatory and reasonable remarks on the subject of school excursions : — " Contrast with the doubtful snd limited good the money spent on prizes may do the pleasure or benefit conferred on every child in the school by an excursion. We are apt, perhaps, to think when we see tbe tratnn to the ;ca side in holiday time crowded with children that tbe young folks of Christjburch are in danger of getting tired of trips .' Bat we must remember there tre hundreds of children in our teeming :ity schools to whom even a irixpenny sxcursion is an impossible luxury. But it is in tbe case of schools in remote country districts that these excursions ire of tbe greatest benefit. We noticed in a repert the other day of a trip to Lyttelton, given to the children of the Sedgmere School, that many of the youngsters had never seen the sea in tbeir lives before. All that they read and learn henceforth will have a new sense and interest for them. Imagine a teacher hammering definitions of gulfs and bays, isthmuses and peninsulas into tbe beads of children who have never seen a herring pond. Such tbines will from now forward become vivid living realities instead of geographical expressions. Stories of ships and shipwrecks, tbe exploits of Paul Jones and the heroism of Grace Darling will now at least have some meaning for the children, even if their experience of the sea and seafaring is confined to Lyttelton Harbor and a steam launch. Some schools, again, we note, have been privileged to visit institutions like the Kaiapoi mills, freezing works and factories. We do not wish so suggest anything that might bring down on our local manufacturers a plague of school picnics, but as they seem always very ready to oblige in throwing tbeir works open to inspection any school committee who could obtain such a privilege for their children would confer on them much more lasting pleasure and profit than by any prize distribution, however liberal. Prizegivings, at best, leave behind more disappointment and jealousy than any good they can do counterbalance ; while school excursions have no drawbacks to their benefits, and will be looked forward to and enjoyed by every child, dux or dunce, in the school-