SCHOOL COMMITEES.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 22, 4 August 1911, Page 16

SCHOOL COMMITEES.

WORK FOR CONTROL OF THEM. Sir, —Allow mc, through the medhim of your p%per to bring under the notice of the Avorkers of this country a subject which, to my mind, is very important, and affects everyone of us. The subject, in question is school committees. . — Not long ago the annual election of these bodies took place, and I noticed in the "Auckland Herald" that there was something like sixty schools in which no workers' representative stood for election. It is a disgrace that we workers should be so indifferent and, careless about an 'mportant matter. • I feel grieved that we keep shouting about locxl government and when the opportunity affords itself we stand idly by and allow our school committees to be run by reverend gentlemen and those avlio aire against us. In the past part of our education has been the history of kings and coronations, of thousands of our felloAvmen being slaughtered for capitalistic enterprises. This Avill continue just so long as the workers alloAV it to go on. If Aye Avoke) up to our privileges and grasped our opportunities Aye could alter all this in a very brief time. We must admit that our education borads are Conservative, and will not listen to reason, as I shall point out. In our school at Huntly avo applied for more seating accommodation for the scholars, and that a gymnasium should be erected. The Education Board flatly refused the request. They are Avilling that our boys should be trained as soldiers and our girls as scouts, Avhilst Aye contend that aa'c could giA r e both sexes a thorough physical training and deA'-elop both Avind and muscle on different line. Nor is this all. Under the present system our children have instilled into them that it is right and proper that they should .be Jingoistic and honour the King, and Avhen they start work obey their masters. To alter this the ;

workers should get a majority representation on theso bodies, and then they can dictate to the education boards and make matters uncomfortable if their instructions are not - carried out. Take our boy; and girls \« hen they leave school; they naturally think it right that there should be rich and poor, because they lave been trained to think so; and when jou come to tell them differently you find a barrier AAdiich is hard to break through. But if Avith committees who have the interests .of the Avorkers' children at heart, who seek to make economics part of our educational system, • then would our children, by reading the best authorities on all social questions, be able to see that all industries are run for profit, and that the present system means the exploitation of tho working class. Let mc urge upon every workingman and woman to act up to a resolution passed by the Huntly School Committee, which is as follows:—"That this meeting of the Huntly School Committee deprecated the action of. the education authorities in spending tho people's money on' coronation medals when tha seating accommodation and other needs of the children are being Avoefully neglected; and, furthermore, that Aye, the representatives of a mining constituency, will not rest until the rights of the children are obtained."—Yours, etc., PICK AND SHOVEL. Huntly. r -