SCHOOL COMMITTEE ELECTION.

Taihape Daily Times, 23 April 1918, Page 4

SCHOOL COMMITTEE ELECTION.

The meeting of householders held last night to elect a new School /Committee was a pleasant surprise. There. were a few less men present than usual, but there was quite a considerable, feminine phalanx there which more than balanced the decrease. The newfound interest in the education of children by ladies of the Plunket Society gives hope for improvement in the creation of nobler citizenship. If the interest displayed by ladies last night increases and becomes of an established and permanent character we

may well hope for ■ the..evolution of higher ideals influencing oar v. nolo education system. _ Naturally, these iadies of the Plunket Society, yvi.i uO anxious to learn where and how knowledge is- disseminated over the whole youth of the district as well as in Taihape itself; and when they learn that a heartless or indifferent Government does allow children to be herded together in barns and stables, and that buildings are disgracefully overcrowded, they will commence to wonder why Government pretends to be concerned about infant life, while later on children are packed, with wet clothes and feet in fireless hovels to receive that moiety of education, the State system prescribes. A circular from the New Zealand Educational Institute was read at the meeting, which disclosed that the Institute viewed the unhealthy conditions under which the schoolmaster had, in very many instances, to educate the young, with considerable alarm. It is evident the members of the Institute are convinced that robust, healthy mentality cannot accompany physical weakness and impairment; that a weakened constitution will not synchronise with the highest in citizenship. The Institute urges that healthful conditions should first be provided, then a remodelling and extension of our whole education system must follow if the British Empire is to continue to hold a place in the van of the world's civilisation. We believe the ladies present last night have commenced to realise that duties and functions of the mothers of our racedo not end with the care of its infant stage, but that it should cover the whole period over which the formation of character must naturally extend. May we ask and urge the ladies, who have enlisted in the ranks of the schoolmasters' auxiliaries, not to be discouraged, by seeming failures at any period over which the good work must be continued to achieve success. Because we believe that this country, that the Empire urgently needs that assistance in the development of citizenship women are by nature adapted to give, we are convinced that if they determinedly persist In face of the hard work, the seeming impossibilities, rebuffs from the authorities, and aboveall from the insinuating sophistries of those whose duty'to the State should oaus'c, them to encourage rather than discourage,-a-great-future is in store for the Empire through* the education of its children:.UUPlunket Society members have ■ put their hand to the education plough and we trust they will never tire or turn back.