SCHOOLMASTER CHARGED.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 September 1918, Page 2

SCHOOLMASTER CHARGED.

ALLEGED ASSAULT ON IPITJPILI. YVaimate, Seoterubcr 3. Ml .V: G. Day, S.M.. heard a case this morning in which VVilliam Clarke, a householder, laid an information against Andrew Bain, headmaster of the Waimate District High School, for assault tin informant's elei'en-yoar-old son, Krnc'st Raymond Clark. The case is a sequel to the refusal of informant to allow his son to 'participate in orderly duties in rotation with all the other beys m picking up Imicli papers, etc., in the school grounds When the boy first refused, at his father's instigation, Bain suspended the boy The parent Kppcaled, first to the school committee, then to the Education Board. Bo.th bodies informed Clark that his boy might come back to school if Clark would 'undertake that the boy would give obedience to th& headmaster. On August 6th Clark sent the boy back, admittedly to get evidence for a case then being worked up. The boy entered the school before the bell rang, and the headmaster ordered him out. "'•!'" Informant to-day failed to show, in evidence that the headmaster had laid [hands on. the boy, but it was shown that the boy left the room when ordered to do so, the headmaster not touching his person. The magistrate, in dismissing the charge of assault, said that even it the headmaster had, as alleged, lifted the boy out of hia seat by his collar, thin j would not have constituted an assault, [incidentally the magistrate deplored the parent's attitude as subservient of an discipline, and said it was no wonder there were conscientious objectors about when such points of view were held.