The Sun FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1927. THE OUTLOOK FOR SCHOLARS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 229, 16 December 1927, Page 8

The Sun FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1927. THE OUTLOOK FOR SCHOLARS

IT is a pleasant experience to attend any one of the many pre- * holiday disbandments of secondary school pupils and enjoy the exuberant spirit of youthfulness which dominates the occasion. The pleasure is so refreshing in its rejuvenating influences that it is to be regretted so many male parents, instead of churlishly deploring the decision of the schools’ authorities to hold prize-distribution functions in the afternoon, when one can see in wholesome, sunny daylight the children’s beautiful environment at school, had not made the same effort to accept the delight as that which marks their attendance at a week-day race meeting. Their sacrifice of time would certainly be more beneficial and probably a great deal less expensive.

Still, it must be confessed that the joy of a school break-up carries its own shadow. In the happy circumstances, which give a glow to the eager faces of ardent youngsters, there is a touch of sadness. The problem of the senior children’s future is brought into an insistent prominence. What is their outlook on real life, what will they do in it to prove worthy of the fine educational work of earnest men and women, to say nothing at all about the sacrifices made by parents to secure for their children the right mental and moral equipment for life’s hard battle? Unfortunately, to-day, even the great optimists, who can see the promise of prosperity in more debt, are quite unable to give a convincing answer. Teachers and those skilled in the art of analysing problems and the adjustment of difficulties have no solution on their glib tongues. One headmaster, acutely conscious of the position, frankly admitted the other day that he found himself in a quandary in offering advice to parents as to the future of their boys. “Secondary school boys,” declared Mr. W. F. Gamble, the able headmaster of Mount Albert Grammar School, “are being absorbed into the business world more slowly than hitherto, due not in any degree to the unsuitability of the lads, but to the hard fact that billets are not to be had.” Precisely! And where are essential billets to come from for the thousands of bright boys and girls who, in merry holiday mood, romp away from classrooms and college halls into the battle of life?

Then we hear, with appreciation of its wisdom, the principal of St. Cnthbert’s College, Miss L. Clonston, plead for recognition of the pity that, in this age of specialisation girls should leave school before they have attained some definite goal. This also is an arresting truth, but what exactly should be the definite goal of intellectual girls? Should the girl of to-morrow have a career as inevitably as her brother ? If not, many educationists have not hesitated to say that the result of college education for girls will he toward the ultimate emergence from school of “a rather priggishly ideal figure.” If her future, on the other hand, is to be a career, where will she find ample opportunity in this country' ? Almost everybody is dissatisfied with the present outlook for the employment of highly intelligent boys and girls. The Public Service is grossly overstaffed now, and such business and intellectual professions which exist are already overcrowded, all kinds of competent scholars scrambling for a precarious living. There is talk of setting up more secondary schools until every suburb has one, as attractive to boys and girls as a magnet to steel filings. Would it not be better to first prepare the way for a quicker and more certain absorption of the present output of scholars into professions and industries? It will not be much of an educational triumph to make matriculation the standard test for subsequent receipt of an unemployment insurance benefit. What are the mute and inglorious politicians going to do about it?