CLOSING OF SCHOOLS.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 December 1916, Page 6

CLOSING OF SCHOOLS.

' To the Editor. Sir.—Re tlie action of the Education Board depriving school committees of any little, measure of authority is rather interesting reading. What is a school committee there for? It seems to mo that a school committee is there'to be everybody's back and nobody's mastei. What an enviable position to hold! Who elected the members of the Education Board to their position? f thought it was the. school committees. But like a lot of the people's servants when they are put into a position, they change from being a servant to a despotic master and try to rule those that put tliem in office with -the mailed fist. Are school committees reckoned: to be fools, and don't know right from wrong? Or are the members of the Education Board infallabic? I think not. I think, also, that a school committee is more interested in the children than the Board or any other body, and therefore are entitled to a certain measure of discriminating power in dealing with sickness and infectious diseases, in schools. Prevention is concodt-d to be better than cure. I happened to bo connected with school committees for some twelve or fourteen years, most of the time, in the back country. I had. the experience of a term of a week or ten days elapsing between the Board being notified and a health officer coming along, and the school with infectious disease was kept opened all that time. It is very hard to arrive at the amount of damage that might In done to the neighborhood through the disease spreading. My own poor opinion is that it would be better for the Board to try to meet' school committees in a reasonable manner than to try as they are doing to' tyrannise over them and strip them of all authority. I am not wishing to ignore- ;.or belittle the power or authority of the Board. On the contrary I think they are worthy ot all respect and thanks for the public services they are giving for the good of humanity, but, notwithstanding all that if any sicknes-. appeared in a school !n which Iwas a member of the committer, I would without hesitation vote for closing the school straight away, as a day of two of school time ,is of much less, importance than would be the spread of sickness in the community.—l am, etc., J JOHN DIGGINS Lepperton, Deeet&ber 1, \ J