SCHOOLS AND LOTTERIES.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 November 1915, Page 6

SCHOOLS AND LOTTERIES.

CHILDREN SHOULD NOT ASSIST. A PROTEST FROM TEACHERS. Interesting correspondence concerning school children and lotteries has been received from the Education Department by the secretary of the Taranaki Education Board.

The Director of Education (Mr. Anderson) forwards a copy of correspondence with the secretary of the New Zealand Educational Institute relating to a circular recently addressed to the head teachers, on behalf of the Greymouth Patriotic Executive, in connection with the promotion of an art union lottery of mineral specimens. The letter adds: "The Minister desires me to express his entire disapproval ot any attempt to enlist the co-operation of schools in an enterprise of this character, and trusts that the Board will take steps to discountenance any appeal made in the terms to which exception has been taken." The letter from the secretary of the New Zealand Educational Institute to the Minister for Education states: "I am directed by the president of the New Zealand Educational Institute to bring under your notice a request that has been made by circular to the head teachers. of schools in New Zealand, asking them to aid in the sale, presumably in the schools, of art union tickets on behalf of the Greymouth Patriotic Executive. . . . The duty of teachers is to instil civic and moral principles into the minds of their young charges, and the issue of this circular may cause many teachers inadvertently to put into practice lessons of an exactly opposite tendency. Among the social evils that teachers have to combat gambling is not the least, and yet they are asked to 'push the sale' of tickets in 'the biggest lottery of its kind promoted in New Zealand for many years.' The • matter is of such gravity that the president, on behalf of the educators of the young people of the Dominion, feel it a matter of duty to draw your attention to it." The Minister of Internal Affairs, writing to the secretary of the Institute on the matter, says: "In connection with the effort to utilise the schools of the country for the purpose of promoting this lottery, I may say that the Government has no sympathy with the action of the Greymouth Executive. . . . The Government has no intention whatever of permitting anything in the nature of gambling orgies." The matter will be placed before the Taranaki Education Board at its next meeting.