THE SCHOOL CARNIVAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 158, 21 November 1912, Page 4

THE SCHOOL CARNIVAL.

The Central School Carnival to-day ought to attract a record attendance at the Recreation Grounds if the energy. and enthusiasm of its organisers counts for anything. Oliver Wendell Holmes said once that a child of sixty had no right to be still alive unless he was prepared to play with a child of six, and it is in appreciation of this spirit that the Carnival Committee are anxious to see as many old fellows as possible get mixed with the boys and girls to-day. Nothing is more~ccrtain than that the boys and giris will be there in their hundreds, dressed in their best bibs and tuckers, and prepared to "do their little stunts" in the happiest fashion for the delectation of their sisters and their cousins and their aunts and their more dignified, if less adorable, male relatives. The Carnival has for its object the. raising of sufficient funds to materially improve the school grounds, which are at present anything but a reproach to some ot our backblock roads. This work should, .of course, be performed, in the natural order of things by the Education Department, but people who wait for the Education Department to "do things" are liable to grow grey-headed in the'waiting. The only alternative is to adopt the principle embodied in.the old English countryside phftbsophy which says, "If you want a thing done, do it yourself." The school has been fortunate in securing the services of a number of prominent citizens who are associated with other public bodies, and their untiring energy has resulted in the framing of a programme that cannot but interest both old and young. The proceeds of the Carnival will be subsidised statutorily by the Government at the rate of pound for pound, and everybody who Jends a little cheery assistance to the show to-day will have the satisfaction of knowing that, besides getting his full pound of flesh personally, he will earn an extra pound for those adorable masters of us all—the little ones.