WAR AND THE SCHOOLBOY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 251, 1 April 1915, Page 3

WAR AND THE SCHOOLBOY.

FRENCH LESSONS FAVORITE.

A DEMAND FOR FACTS. The small schoolboy—the kind that is found in a preparatory school—is an adaptable creature and almost a philosopher (says a schoolmaster writing in the London Evening News). The only geography that is considered worth doing is the study of the map of Europe. There was almost a riot in my class last term when I suggested that Caesar's "Invasion of Britain" should be translated from the original Latin, into the vulgar tongue. Jones minor pretended to think that by the vulgar tongue I meant German. In any case it was considered to be an unfortunate subject. Might prevailed, however, a,nd the doss consoled itself by reflecting that the Roman legions had a "hot time" on our shores, and decided that the Roman "kultur" was of some value to the ancient Britons.

Boys are beginning to feel that the arithmetic tables are quite inadequate. There should be a table dealing with the number of men in a platoon and the largest number of lance-corporals in a half-company. "HOW MANY r

Problem sums would then be attractive. I am convinced that if the reduction of miles to inches were changed to finding the number of privates in a company, or sergeants in a squadron, half-holidays spent in finishing up arrears would lose all their shadows.

French has ceased to be a despised language, and French lessons are no longer a kind of comic relief to the tragedies of Latin prose. Sotaething more is required than the famous exercises in which tender inquiries are made after the clever cousin of the feminine gardener, or the tin bath of the juvenile marquis. The language is being learnt on sounder lines, and we can now ask where the field-marshal's tent has been pitched, and why the machine-guns of the enemy have not been destroyed. Jones minor even longs to acquire a perfect accent, forgetting the time when he considered it mincing and unmanly. He takes hi s 100 lines for making faces in form—when he has merely been trying to get Ihe *V' bound c rcctly—without a murmur. No doubt be feels that he is "doing his bit."

But the schoolmaster who is bra'-e enough to hold forth to 15 or 2(1 boys on the history of the war up-to-date is a brave man. If he ventures to say that a certain event happened just after the Allies took , it is not impossible that a paw may be raised on the back bench and a piping voice say:— '"Sense me, sir, but wasn't it ihr?o weeks before that? My brother (<r cousin, or uncle) was in it, so I have heard about it first hand."

PREVARICATION. If the master is a wise man, he accepts the correction in a proper spirit of gratitude. If not, and that generally happens, he prevaricates. Newspaper accounts, be says, vary upon that point. Unhappy man! By this time he haa probably convinced the whole form that he is uncertain himself, and there is a small chorus of voices, the owners of which claim to have the means of getting first-hand information.

However, the bell generally rings at this point, the class disperses, the mm has a chance of finding out whether heis right or wrong, and the boys rush <<» the letter rack. "

For tlif school posts are the most important events of the day now. There is hardly a boy who lias not som.:one at the front about whom he expects to hear each day.

FOUND OUT. j The form master's tot is not a happy \ one. Ho is expected to know offhand the position of every little village on the Continent which has been, or is b.\".ic, or is about to be, captured. It is also take n for granted" that he has digested the entire contents of the morning papers within the half-hour ',n which lie has leisure to read them before first school. Should he be found girUy of not knowing something lie is saddled ',vith a reputation for not tak : ug any interest in the Avar.

In this case certain remarks in the next essay on '•Patriotism, false an 1 true,'' are too pointed to be mistaken. Strategist, expert in the minutest details of the geography of Kuropc, diplomatist—these are only three of the qualities that Jones minor insists on finding in his pedagogue to-day.