SCHOOLS OF THE EMPIRE

North Otago Times, Volume CVII, Issue 17748, 10 March 1927, Page 4

SCHOOLS OF THE EMPIRE

j For some time New Zealand has j j been rec»eiving as welcome immi- j grants hoys from some of the Eng- ! iish public schools. Most ofi these boys have come out with the intention. of settling 011 the land, as dairy and sheep farmers, and1 the majority of them like the life and bid fair to do well in their adopted land. These boys are past school age, though some few have come out rather younger and have gone for' a year or two to schools, in the Dominion, such as the New Plymouth High School, where they can have special instructions in farming suhjects, though they are pupils of the school just like other bnys. Recently Dr. M. - J. Rendall, who was for some years headmaster of the famous Winchester ''School, visited .most parts of the Empirc on a cammission for the Rhodes Trustees. On his return to Engiand he made an inte.testing suggestion. He stated that there are schools in the Dominions which are trying to adapt the best spirit and traditions of the English public schools to their own culture and school life, often against various obvious difficulties. Dr. Rendall suggests that teachers from the English schools should seek posts in the Dominion schools for two or three years. The salaries are, he says, good, the boys delightful, and the holiday superh. They will hring with them something of .English ideals andi standards, and will return with an experience which will widen the scope of their teaching and benefit their pupils, and they will have been shaken out of many conventional rats. Also, though Dr. Rendall does not mention it, they might do something to dispel a good deal of the ignorance which still remains at Home of our life and conditions. A scheme of this sort has been in existence in a small way amo 11 g Government schools, and teachers, especially WQmen, are exchanged for teachers from Home and the other Dominions, snch as Canada and South Africa. But no scheme. exists by which masters come out from Engiand to our "colleges and secondary schools. There will be difficulties in any such scheme ; the men chosen to come must he able and imbued with the right spirit. They can be found, and our schools and headmasters will surely do their best to foster such a scheme.