TRAINING OF BOYS

Hokitika Guardian, 20 December 1933, Page 2

TRAINING OF BOYS

'CRITICISM BY HEADMASTER

•IMPORTANCE OF TRUE -SPORT

AUCKLAND, December 17.

“Although ive . must not allow sport to assume a place of undue importance in school life, we must acknowledge

that in many case s people diave gone to the other extreme,” said the headmaster of King’s School, the Rev. J. M. Beaufort, yesterday' afternoon. “There the danger of trying to rear boys in ‘cotton wool’ and in ‘glass* houscsd

“Some imagine .that by “coddlingtheir hoys they obviate all possibility of temptation and injury—lhoth moral and physical,” said Mr Beaufort. •Sooner or later a boy would have to fend for himself. Boys coddled in their youth faced the world with a tremend-

ous-handicap. “There is a vast difference between ■wilfully exposing a boy to dang e r or to evil influence and allowing him to come into contact very gradually with forces with which he must reckon during the rest of .his life,’’ Mr Beaufort added. “The definite fule of King’s School is that-ail buy s except those certified as medically unfit must take part in, the ordinary school games, of cricket alid football If trivial, excuses are irta.de 'for the. boy who -iB riot particularly . keen on' exercis e . he un* doubtedly . suffers in the long, run." The danger of , “pot-hunting" ' wa* also a serious one. While -fully aW to the value of sport -in charactertraining,. ; niaiiy people - could not: bu< feel, that there was a real' danger o f itg assuming a place’ of such undue importance. to undermine its tru e ; aim —the icTeation 'of true manliness end sportsmanship..