Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, MAY 23, 1922. LOYALTY IN AUSTRALIAN SCHOOLS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2432, 23 May 1922, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, MAY 23, 1922. LOYALTY IN AUSTRALIAN SCHOOLS.

IN future, all children attending public schools in New South Wales will recite once a week the words, “I honour my Hag,” and every eflort will be made to instare the observance of those sentiments by the children. In making an announcement to this -effect, the Minister of Education (Mr A. Bruntnell) said that he had issued a minute to the masters of all State schools instructing them to form the whole of the pupils into a hollow square round the flagstaff, s on which the flag is flown on the first day in each week, and then teach them to recite the words above. After saluting the flag, the children shall sing one stanza of the National Anthem and march to their various class-rooms. Mr Bruntnell said that he had come to the conclusion that need of reverence and loyally in the citizenship of to-day could not be.impressed too strongly in .the minds of the children. “There is a good deal being done in other directions,” he went on to say, “to poison the minds of the children against God, the King and the Empire, and I consider that it- is imperative that we should, so fur as our State schools are concerned, counteract this pernicious influence hv instilling into their minds this xluty. It has been thecustom,” he added, “to do something of this sort on special occasions, but I am desirous that this should take precedence on the first school day of every week. T firmly believe that this procedure will have wholesome results.”