RANDOM NOTES.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 152, 30 September 1926, Page 1

RANDOM NOTES.

(By a Random Writer) IV. I spent an interesting evening some weeks ago, at a combined meeting of members of Primary School Committees from surrounding districts, and other visitors, at the Matamata Junior High School, to which a friend had, though a rank outsider—(l mean I was the rank outsider, not the friend—which looks as if I were trying to say that I was not the friend. Well, I wasn’t. What I mean to say is that the friend was not the outsider. I was. Now I’ve got the thing straightened out ; and, as they say, it should be clear to the meanest understanding)—kindly given me an invitation. At this meeting the star attraction was, of course, the new headmaster of the “ Junior High.”

More of him anon. New schoolmasters, like new ministers of churches, and to a less degree new doctors, seem to be subjects of special curiosity. The first the young people expect to see a good deal of; the second the older people are more interested in; while as to the doctors, people generally hope that the less they have to see of thenii the better.

I remember, when I was a boy, how interested we youngsters were when .we knew there was going to be a new schoolmaster. Perhaps the older people were interested, too; but they; couldn’t be expected to be such expert judges as we were; they hadn’t such good data to go upon, as will be seen. Those were the days of “ moral suasion at the end of a stick,” and when the shortest route to a boy’s brains was pretty often considered to be through the seat of his trousers. So our chief point of interest lay in speculating as to how expert a thrasher the new schoolmaster would be likely to prove, and how sporting a contestant in administering his doses of moral suasion and brain tonic. I have said “ contestant ”; for there was a real contest on when a really good thrashing was dealt out—a contest between man and boy —the man’s estimate of the extent to which he ought to “ lay it on ” and the boy’s in how much he could stand without whimpering; and the boy who could take a dozen “ handers ” without flinching was a hero to himself and to the whole school. That was one of the ways in which we learned endurance.

Of course, with plenty of practice, you evolved something of a knack in “ taking it on the hand.” You had always to be careful not to get your thumb in the way. Snatching your hand back, too, had its dangers; for } after the first time the master might calculate on this, and if you held steady the next time you probably caught it on the wrist, which was only less painful than on the thumb.' Of course, when this happened everybody, master included, was sorry; but you were always the sorriest. Then, too, there might be unpleasant afterconsequences, for a tell-tale mark would be left on the wrist, which led to inconvenient inquiries at home; and no boy likes to be questioned about matters concerning which he is not at the time in a position to put on an air of bravado. Grown-ups, too, have a curious way of thinking the ip aster is in the right. It’s funny; but there it is. Perhaps, on the whole, it’s best so. Sometimes the hand was not the ; seat of operations; but the seat was. j Then neatly adjusted folds of newsl paper, or your leggings, came in I handy; and the rest of the boys got ! great fun when the first few strokes gave back unnaturally-sharp sounds I and the extemporised padding was j thereupon hauled out. Of course, you j got your reward, in the shape of a I few extra strokes to make up for the j “ duds ” and for having tried to bluff ! the master. Sometimes the master ( didn’t need to wait for tell-tale ■ sounds. It was suspicious when a boy i who habitually wore leggings in the winter turned up on some wet morn-

ing, when he happened to be due for an innings, without his leggings that is, as far as mortal eye could see. Then “ haul ’em out ” gave keen | merriment to the onlookers, and it was of little use for the boy to assume an aspect of wondering surprise i when the master inserted an explor-

ing hand and found the leggings. The boy got his “ extras ” all right.

It was always a good speculation, at the beginning of the day, as to how many boys would have to “ line vp ” for the day’s most exciting function, and who they might be. We could reckon them up to some extent beforehand. There was so-and-so, who who had played truant the day before; and so-and-so, who slipped off home at the previous mid-afternoon recess, his place in class knowing him no more that day; and so-and-so, who ■was being “ kept-in ” and bolted out of school when he got the Chance; and so-and-so, who having had a really choice innings the previous afternoon had shouted something “cheeky” for the master’s benefit as he ran down the alley-way at the side of the school building; and I was almost forgetting the two who were found fighting, away in the brickfields, the favourite cock-pit, after school hours. We were sure of these, hut there might be others to swell the roll, that we so far wot not of. We could only judge by the master’s countenance—

“ Well have the boding tremblers learned to trace The day’s disasters in his morning face.”

You will have noted “ after school hours.” Schoolmasters were extra good to: boys in those days, often looking after them a good deal out of school hours as well as in. Those youngsters who now make themselves nuisances to other passengers in the railway trains wouldn’t have got off as lightly then as they do now.' The guard may have reported to the schoolmaster. Somehow or other the schoolmaster would have got to know, and then would come the reckoning. His argument would be something like this: “You misbehaved going home in the train; you belong to this school, therefore you brought discredit on this school; and I must deal with you.” I don’t kn’ow whether you would call this kind of argument an example of a pel-fee! syllogism, but that was its line, and a very effective line it was, taken in conjunction with its practical application. There was certainly, and as the reader (if there are readers) will see, a sweet reasonableness about what the master did.

In those clays the “ self-expression” tag had not fastened itself on to theories and methods of schoolroom education. Madame Montesorri hadn’t been heard of; the expressing was mostly done by the master.

From all this, which is not overdrawn, although the reader may possibly over-imagine it, it may be thought that schooldays then were very unhappy times and that the master was very hard and even cruel. Not at all. The man who gave half-a-dozen of us a welting at 10 a.m. would be playing “ prisoners’ base ” with us at the 11 o’clock recess, or giving personal exhibitions of the

“ standing jump ” at which he was an adept; and after afternoon school would join in the deliberations of the Boys’ Cricket Club committee, and donate a couple of pounds towards the purchase of equipment, as against the boys’ own penny a week subscription. (I think New Zealand boys, who spend a shilling at one time on “ lollies ” will hardly appreciate this penny a week business, unluckily for them.) The whole point of the relationship between boys and master was not whether the hidings were sharp and frequent, but whether the man was just. That is the whole thing as far as the moral effect on the boys was concerned and his subsequent relations with the master.