OUR TECHNICAL SCHOOL.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 24 February 1917, Page 4

OUR TECHNICAL SCHOOL.

Sir, —A paragraph in last night's "Times" states that the Marton District School Committee are taking steps to have the compulsory attend' ance at Technical Schools cladfes oi the Education Act put into force in the Marton District. This is a leac which I think our local School Committee might well follow. To me ii

has always seemed an injustice to oui boys that, just at the most critical period ci their lives, the bands of com. pulsory attendance at school are loosed, and before they have had an op portunity of forming tastes and habits —literary, artistic, mechanical, must

cal, or other —they are turned upoß the streets to take their chance, anc I need not dilate upon the result. Ii is not as if a new principle were be ing introduced. We have already com pulsory attendance at the day school and it simply means that a boy, or completing the standard course a' the Primary school would not be al lowed to sever his connection witt school altogether. He would be com pelled to attend at least two evenings per week at the local Technica' School in addition to the one evening per week in drill and physical train ing for two years. I feel sure the lo cal School Committee would earn th< gratitude of parents by taking sucl action,, and there is little doubt thai it would be of immense service to tin boys themselves and to the State, i: the practice became universal. —I am etc., ? JAMES SMITH.