CORRESPONDENCE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1956, 25 March 1919, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —It was with a feeling of disgust, mingled with shame, that I read of the attempted victimisation by two members of the Education Board of an applicant for a junior position on the teaching staff of the Board, because the applicant had committed the crime of being born of German parents. But what appeals most to me is the fact that the particular applicant had two brothers serving our King and country. Yet these two objecting Board members would deny the right to the flesh and blood of these soldiers to live in the country they had fought for. Surely these two misguided Board members should know that they are doing more harm to, and belittling the responsible position they hold by acting as the devout dcsciples of the author of the hymn of hate, and whose kultur they are busy assimilating. Yet they had no compunction about accepting* the protection of those two soldier brothers, whom they would now insult by denying their relations the right to live. To what state these two quiduncs would allow education to drift per medium of their mental aberration if allowed to continue in office, is hard to say. How long afe the people going to put up with this sort of thing? Is the education of the coming race to 1)0 dominated by such post war hatred? Our children should be protected from such primeval relics df the dark ages. Men holding such views should no longer be tolerated in any position, and education above all things. It the staff of teachers must be British born, then why not apply it to all positions of trust. Oh, the hypocrisy of it all! The spectacle of some who would impress upon others the high level they have reached in any community, men who are to be seen going to worship the One who was crucified for preaching the doctrine of Love and Brotherhood to all men, : and to hear them chant, “Give peace in our time, oh Lord,” and when the day of worship is over to deny others the right to live 'because they had no choice of parentage, and by their gospel of hate (hey seek, per medium of the schools, to make the coining nation a. nation of bigoted hypocrites such is (heir social level. M hen wo see men abusing a position of such importance in their endeavour to sow the seeds of hale which will assist to plunge future generations into another carnival of horror, it warns us that the sooner they are removed from positions of such importance the better. And hero is the need of a radical reform in education, for while at present only committees can elect representatives lo the Board, the public who are most concerned have no say whatever. When wo realise the importance of the position, and the wiping out of the Board and leaving local committees to run their respective schools, the sooner will education benefit, or else let the public elect those who they could call upon to propound a definite policy beforehand, so that they would have the satisfaction of [mowing that they could elect some rational, broad-minded citizen, who would refuse to perform the duty of a grindstone for the axe, and’whose policy Avould include the general wakefulness and the requirements of education, instead of sleeping and then waking only when the Chairman chants his hymn of hate, and this can bo applied locally. —I am, etc.,

INTERNATIONAL,