AN OPEN LETTER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 180, 29 January 1914, Page 3

AN OPEN LETTER.

TO THE GOVERNORS OE THE NEW PLYMOUTH HIGH SCHOOL.

lientlenieii-Hy the kind permission of the Kdilur of the Daily Sn-«, keS respectfully to address you a bnc letter on the report': of the High School camp, as they have been submitted. 1 presume to vou and also to the public. \\ hat arrests my attention is the concuulnig sentence in the report ot the headmaster, where he say, that the camp will be looked on "as the most lienchcial portion of the year's work, Unit is how he regards it. 1 suppose, and since the report was submitted to yo,i, and received apparently vyHhout comment, the. public may tairly mlcr that vour Board approves ot that sentiment. I would ask you, gentlemen, to think i what is meant, or at any rate implied, j ■,„ the sentiment that a military camp is the most beneficial portion of the year's work of a High School tor girls . and hoys. If the chief end ot 1 to fi«lvt his fellow men it would be; but \ ) it is not! Lord Acton says that the iirst'consideration is the ctHeal Wore the economical, the political or the social and tlw ethical is, if not altogether absent, of very small concern m military 'training. 1 ™nld respectfully vsk whether you, gentlemen, have weighed in yonr own minds the relative value* «» military training and. ««>', erieket. football and gymnastics--to fray nothing about thf old-fashioned schoo work Thcsc latter seem to have an them all I tW physical and disciplinary ben ts that military training can have ex cpt \ thev do not "produce a real military .p rit in the school," which i* tke am I of the camp, according to the opening clause of the commandants report n might go further and ask how this Laming will compare in point ° "»» I>ciilfit with other school work, such as „Kithematics, science. t0 .ay nothing ot the moral and e- J.■<.« education which is presumed to_ be . essential portion ol a compete t>] t oi •iti/.en. Undoubtedly a military ►pint tl for it* complete exhibition some ,bject-an enemy on whom it <an * tiiplayed; and that spirit v,h ; mbro^l „to action in dealing With the enemy, not ethical but material and s ,„ nothing else. This * not h,■ tun ng that in this 2<ith centur - '»" r ' or our youth. Belter teach the hojs, „d girls too, the real inward meaning ,f the. proverb: '-Trutli. is mighty ana vUI prevail."-! am, etc., January 27, l!>i •