THE DEFIANT HIGGINSON.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2095, 3 June 1907, Page 1

THE DEFIANT HIGGINSON.

TROUBLES OF A COUNTRY SCHOOLTEACHER.

The way of the country teacher is not by any means a rose-strewn path, judging by a letter read at the last meeting of the Auckland Education Board. There is a boy named Higginson attending a back blocks school, and he has leaped into public notoriety with meteoric suddenness, if not actual brilliancy. It was in this wise, according to the lotter from his teacher above referred to:—“I regret to have to report that the boy Higginson challenged my authority before tho school in the matter of a football game.” As the secretary (Mr. V. Rice) read this opening sentence every member of the Board looked grave, for the case seemed one of seroius insubordination, to which, of course, the Board is unanimously and strongly opposed. “Heretofore,” continued the teacher, “I forbade them to play that 'nine in the interests of education.” The Board looked graver still. “There was nothing about it until today,” proceeded the writer, “when I saw that boy Higginson passing down along the paddock with this groat ball, and tho little boys with him. When 1 called him to account for playing this game I forbade before, and without my consent, he replied impudently that, he would play the ball. A committeeman said he could play it, and if I refused, the committee would make me let them play. Higginson was defiant”—Here the face of every member of the Board wore an expression of solid determination, each apparently prepared himself to consider Higginson as meriting something a little more drastic than titiflation with a rattan.

But more was to come, as the secretary read on. “Through obeying him (Higginson) little Storey disobeyed me, and got whipped. Whon I did allow the boys to play it, they came into school in the afternoon in a filthy state—dirty, panting, and in perspiration not endurable. They were not able to follow the work, neither were they cooled down till three o’clock dismissal.

There was a deadly silence, and then the chairman spoke, after an obviously thoughtful pause. He said he thought it was unwise to prevent boys from perspiring if they wanted to. It did them good. In any case if was unwise to interfere with them playing football in their meal time, dome other members appeared to look at tlie matter in the same light, but if they were overawed by the haughty defiance of Higginson, Mr. Edgecumbe was not. He adopted a firm but diplomatic attitude- • The boy Storey’s father was going to take legal proceeding for assault, but had been dissuaded, said Mr. Edgecumbe. However trivial the offence may have beeen, Storey ought not to have disobeyed the express order of his teacher, and the boys as a whole, not even Higginson, heoric as his attitude might appear to tho -rest of the scholars, ought not to set the school teacher at defiance. . /

The Board also received a letter from the local committee on the same matter, and after Mr. Parr had impressed upon tlio members the serious consequences that might ensue if football were to be in any way discouraged or tobooed, the Board resolved, “That the secretary be instructed to" write to Higginsoq’s teacher, emphasising its view that football might be played out in school hours, and&in fact, that it should not bo forbidden in future.”