Girl Keeps Up With Classmates

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 49, 13 March 1937, Page 18

Girl Keeps Up With Classmates

BY GOING TO SCHGOL ON FATHER'S SHIP. DURBAN.— -Mar j orie Gofton, daughter of Capt. A, W, Gofton of the motorship Elmworth, takes her school about with her to interesting places on the map, instead of takihg her maps to. school. Her school is her father's ship i and for nearly a year the walk to school has been no longer than halfway round the deck, she revealed when the ship put iu here recently. Mrs Gofton, who is also aboard, has kept Marjoria hard at work with French, algebra and arithmetie, and her father and the chief officer have assisted with geometry, and have also taugnt her the elements of trigonometry. Since she first went to . sea at the age of 3, Mar j orie has traveled 100,000 miles; she elaims to have learned more history and geography by actually seeing places than her less fortunate schoolmates. For instance, she is probably- the only. English schoolgirl "to have visited the ionely island of Pitcairn. She has made regular trips to South Ameriea with her mother an^L father, but at 8 she left the sea and went to school in Newcastlo. Her present voyage is one her father promised her she could have when she reached the age of 12 — only it haa turned out to .be the longest voyage his ship has made for years. Marjorie does not mind. In fact, she is delighted, for nearly a year now she has been roaming the seven seas and acquiring knowledge she would never get out of school books. . Since she joined the Elmworth in January she has visited both eastern and western Canada, the United State, the West Indies, Pitcairn Island, Australia and now, owing to a mishap to the Elmworth 's engines, has added South Africa to the list. During the time jthat the Elmworth is travelling between ports Marjorie works to a time-table, which gives her 8$ hours' study a day. From 9.30 to noon and from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. she is "hard at it." When the Elmworth is in port, she studies & little economics, geography, history and botany. When she returns to Tynemouth Municipal High School she will take her place with her classmates after a year crammed with adventure, the type of learning not to be, found in schools, and a wide personal knowledge of many strange places and ports.