The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1912. A WAR SIDE-LIGHT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 87, 7 December 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLE R. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1912. A WAR SIDE-LIGHT.

It is stated that one curious result of the Tripoli War has been the cultivation of a taste for macaroni amongst the Arabs. One war correspondent who spent some weeks with the Arabs in camp near Dedna, where the Italians were stationed in force, states that the natives are prepared to take many risks in order to capture the sacks of macaroni which are served to the Italian soldiers. Before the outbreak of the war the Arabs had never heard of the food, and they were puz•ded to know what to do with it when they first discovered it at a raided outpost. But Europeans who were serving with them were able to provide the required culinary information, and now the Hassa and the Barassa tribesmen capture as many sacks of macaroni as possible. They are adepts at reconnoitring the enemy’s camps by night,, and if an outpost is seen to be poorly guarded or particularly well provisioned an attack is sure to be delivered. “Lately a mere handful of Arabs attacked an Italian advance guard,” writes a correspondent, “and captured a large quantity of macaroni and several big kettles. Indescribable was the glee of the tribesmen when they were thus able to boil the food in proper vessels. I had an opportunity to taste the macaroni prepared by the Arabs, and I told them that in order to make the dish palatable it was necessary to use a quantity of salt. But this is a matter of taste, and the Hassa enjoy the food without mixing salt with their macaroni.” The correspondent mentions that the Arabs “are clever imitators and mimic /admirably the Italian fashion of eating macaroni. Which all sounds very funny, indeed.

THE DAY SCHOOL

Tlio future influence of tile day school as compared with the boarding school was discussed editorially the other day in the London ‘Times, ’ educational supplement. “Ideally, the day school should he the more perfect system, for the presence of the child is as good for the home, as the influence of the home ought to he good for the child,” says ‘The Times.’ “Each may educate the other. Parents may lose as much from being without the responsibilities and restraints of daily contact with quick, observant, nr sensitive childjreoi as children lost by being withdrawn from parental supervision and care. Yet in practice, as all acknowledge, the case is not so clear. The two systems cannot be satisfactorily compared because there is no equal basis of comparison, ot-

ally speaking, a good boarding-school exercises a peculiar and, in some respects, unapproachable influence upon character by its traditions, its memories,- the pressure oi' its public opinion and established customs —in a word, by its ‘esprit do corps’ but only if these are good. If they are bad—and all who arc familiar with public school life knows that they can be, and are occasionally even in the best and greatest schools, very bad indeed—there are terrible dangers of moral contamination from which, in ordinary, homos, boys (or are comparatively free. This alone may well influence parents, to whom a good day school is accessible, in their choice oi a school. Educationally, too, such a school, if well staffed and organised, may exercise a stronger local force than the boarding-school at a distance can exercise. A good day school, which lives in and through and for the locality which it serves, is a constant

challenge to intellectual effort. As compared with an non-local school, it exercises a direct influence on a given neighbourhood, is less respective ol class, more common to the whole people, and so more in harmony with the ideas and tendencies of a democratic age; and, perhaps best of all, demands for its own success and healthy life a keener and more widely distributed interest in education—the very thing of which English education stands most in need. For many years to come the great boarding-schools that, with all their serious educational defects and occasional moral dangers, have done so much to form a high type of character in the upper and ruling classes will probably hold their own. But there is growing in out 1 large centres of population a supply of day schools from which in the future w< may look for better educational re suits, with less grave risks tp charac ter; schools strong in Meal sympathy and support, and in close connection with the homes of their scholars: schools offering to numbers of English citizens, at a cost within theii means, educational advantages tlia l have hitherto been confined, as a rule to a select minority of birth and wealth.”

"HONOURING AN ORDER.”

Business integrity was the text of a little homily delivered by Mr. Kenrick, S.M., at the Stratford Court yesterday. The case concerned an older given by the son of a local taibr to a labourer to get goods on credit from a Waipuku storekeeper, both tin father and the son denying liability tc pay the debt contracted. The soi; was not a partner, though the business was styled so as to make the pub lie understand there was a partnership, and the father was not aware of his son’s action. Mr. Kenrick gave judgment for the father, and against the son, but remarked that it was not very creditable for people in business to act in this manner. The amount involved was not large, and for the sake of bis good name the father would have been wise to have met the liabil ity. A man wire did not 1 meet such transactions led himself to be looked upon with doubt by his business associates. This man must suffer in that lie repudiated his son’s liability, when his (the father’s) name had no doubt induced the storekeepers to honour tin order.