Canadian Woman Enjoys N.Z. Life

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 846, 14 December 1929, Page 5

Canadian Woman Enjoys N.Z. Life

TWO YEARS IN COUNTRY ADMIRES SCHOOL SYSTEM To me, Melbourne is the most beautij ful city of the Commonwealth, although Sydney Harbour was more lovely than I had dreamed, writes, in a Canadian paper, Elizabeth McCaffrey, a Canadian school-teacher who taught for seven years in schools in Australia, New Zealand and the South Seas, and who recently returned home. Tasmania was the most picturesque of the States of Australia. The myrtle forest of Tasmania, with its lacy loveliness, is a picture that will stay with me while memory lasts. The heat of summer and the cold of winter had to be considered in the building of the Melbourne schools, but I found them more comfortable in summer heat than in winter cold. A fireplace in one corner of the classroom was the usual mode of heating that I found, and the caretaker never dreamed of starting the fire before the teacher arrived. As a rule, the classes were large and the classrooms had not been built to accommodate the number of children usually found in one room. The teachers were very conscientious, hard workers. They have two teachers’ organisation, one with both men and women members and the other is the women teachers’ organisation—an organisation to see that the sugar plums do not all go to the men. The Australian schoolboy would be hard to beat, and he holds a corner all his own in my heart. He is hard as nails, bright, alert, and bobs up smiling serenely after any fair punishment. He is always watching to catch you napping, but appreciates it when you hold your own. He can usually tell you how to place a shilling both ways on a winner and if the favourite "falls down” or is “scratched,” it is a “fair cow,” the worst possible name an Australian can ; apply to human or beast. In all the State schools of Victoria 1 State, corporal punishment for girls was forbidden, and as a result quite a percentage of schoolgirls lacked discipline. However, I am afraid that condition might be found in more lands than Australia. In one school, while the teachers were sitting round the teachers’ room, a little girl with a scratch on her face came in crying and said a small boy had hit her with a tin can. The principal sent for the culprit. A chubby little chap, as broad as he was long, responded to the call. The principal fixed him with his eye and said, very sternly; “What do you mean, sir, by hitting a little girl?” The wee chap lisped out: “Pleathe, thir, what’th a fella to do? The tarth were all chasing me.” Tarts is Australian slang for flappers. Both the Australian young and old have all the faith in the world in Ausj tralia. Dear old Aussie is so wonderful, so splendid, that she can bear any burden placed upon her and rise above it. It is a most wonderful faith and patriotism. Before leaving, one of the boys brought me a real boomerang made of jarrah wood by a “black fellow” in Western Australia. It was one that had seen actual service and I prize it very much. After having visited every State in the Commonwealth for sightseeing purposes and having taught a year in the Melbourne schools, I went to New Zealand. I took a room in a school in a New Zealand village that was of easy access to many points of beauty and interest, and where I got 'my Canadian mail regularly every Tuesday fortnight. From the school I could see Ngaruahoe, the active volcano, and Ruapehu, a snow-capped extinct volcano that rose in stately grandeur more than 9,000 feet above the surrounding plains. There is an old Maori prophecy to the effect that Ruapehu will break out some day and annihilate the surrounding country. I warned the other teachers that if Ruapehu ever did such a thing in my lifetime without giving me the benefit of the show I would consider him a “fair cow,” to revert to Australian. There are quite a few Maoris in this part of the country and the Maori children attended the public school on quite an equal footing socially and every way with the European children. The Maori children have soft brown eyes, dark olive skins and very musical voices. Tonight, I would love to hear my Maori girls singing in Maori “Farewell to thee; soon you will be sailing far across the sea.” From the time I left Canada, for seven years in all, the schools in which 1 taught, the pound, shilling and pence was the unit of money, and, of course, came into the arithmetic. Canadian teachers don’t know how easy our arithmetic is with its decimal system of dollars and cents. New Zealand schools are stressing the teaching of English and composition especially for their cultural value. There seems to be an impression., abroad that our schools on the whole stress the commerce side more than the culture. the Australian, and I think the best trained children I have found anywhere was a family of four little New Zealand girls. In New Zealand schools ; they have a fine system of medical in i spection every so many months by a doctor and a nurse. The school year is divided into j three terms with two weeks holidays ! at the end of the first and second | terms and the long summer holidays at the end of the last term at Christmas time. I spent two years in New Zealand, and during that time I visited the South Pacific Islands. While in Haupai, in the Tongan Group,' I had on encounter with a little Tongan boy. He insisted on acting as guide, but we (there were three of us, an American couple and I) said no. Then the small boy wanted to come as a friend, just to talk English with us. He attached himself to me. I asked him his name. “William.” he said, and asked me mine and where I belonged. When I said “Canada,” he said: “Oh, the Dominion of Canada. Ottawa is the capital.” Then, “Where are they from?” I said: “The States.” “Which State?” he asked, and when told lowa, he said: “It is not as big as Texas, but no so far from Salt. Lake City. Have you ever been in Salt Lake City?” For a while he sang American songs and then asked the American man about safe stocks to buy in New York city. Imagine a small native boy of the South Pacific Islands, and wear-

ing none too many clothes, discussing New York stocks. His general knowledge was surprising, and I asked him what school he attended. He told me the Latter Day Saints School at Lifuka, in Haapai, and his teacher was a Canadian. born in Southern Alberta! My two years in New Zealand came to an end, and I came home via the ; Far East, bringing with me very happy memories of the girls and boys of the Empire, and feeling that there is very little difference between us all. I received universal kindness and courtesy while away from Canada, and I felt it was given me because I was j a Canadian and for the sake of Canada. I wish I could ask every single boy and girl in Canada to be espeeially courteous and considerate of strangers and to remember that Canada is judged on its merits.