SCHOOL DISCIPLINE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 369, 1 July 1874, Page 5

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE.

(To the Editor.) Sir, — In your issue of the 27th nit., I read in your report of the School Committee that information had been lodged against certain pupils attending the school for some obscene writing which had been traceable to them. As there was no formal business done, there not being a quorum present, the question as to the punishment such an offence deserves was not decided ; but from some remarks made regarding it I can see the extreme penalty of expulsion was talked of and to sanction this punishment, the desirability of applying to the Education Board waa also mentioned. Now, in the first place I would say, if it were a matter of school government certainly receive the decision of the Education Board ; but as it is entirely a question of discipline, let it be settled at the School tribunal, by the master alone as the judge, the school as the jury, aud the committee if they choose as the accusers. It is the master's authority and influence alone that can maintain a high moral tone throughout the school, but if his power in a matter of discipline be once superseded in the eyes of the children, his sway is in a great measure gone. Then again nothing will have a more salutary and corrective influence on a child than for his compeers to sit in judgment on liis misdeeds. Next I would speak of expulsion from school. As a punishment it should be the very last resorted to, and then only after many and repeated, but fruitless, efforts at reformation, and when the influence on the school is really contaminating. A similar case came under my notice in a school in the old country. Three were implicated in the offence. It was aletter. The pupil who wrote .it, and whose influence in many respects had been proved to be vicious, was expelled. The one who assisted in concocting the letter, and the other who attempted to deliver it — both generally well-behaved — were condemned to be sent from school for a week, and then admitted on trial. The punishment had the desired effect. Another thing, in a town like Lawrence, where there is only one public school and no other chance for a child to retrieve his character at another school, expulsion becomes more serious. Our youth must be pruned and trained in their growth, and not cast out as hopeless : time enough when they make outcasts of themselves. Family discipline and school training are the foundations of a people's purity and a country's greatness. — I am, &c, A Parent.

Fat and Lean. — Meat eaters and vegetarians show in their persons, says the " Scientific American," the effects of the diet The first has the most brain force and nervous energy. A mixed food of animal and vegetable rations, dcvelopcs the highest intellectual powers. A strictly vegetable living ordinarily gives a fair complexion, and amiability, and extreme pugnacity when the vegetarian's views in regard to that one engrossing thought of his life is discussed. They are annual meeting reformers, without ever setting a river on fire. Arabs are a sober, frugal race, rather slender, not tall, conscientious ,&nd. contentious on religious subjects. They largely subsist on rice, pulse, milk - and keimac, something similar to whipped cream, through a vast region of an arid country where they are indigenous. They are not destitute of mutton, goats, camels and game; but they manifest no disposition to feed upon meats, as is necessary in temperate zones or in high northern latitudes. An intellectual man, one of their kindred, who rises Xd distinction by the grandeur of his mental status, is extremely rare. The beer and ale drinkers expand and grow fat, but they are not much given to profound researches in science. The following account of the recent robbery of the Mudgee mail is given by the "Sydney Empire " • — " About two p.m. on Friday, 29th May, the Mudgee mail was stuck up by two armed men and robbed. The coach was on its way with the Sydney mails, and had reached a part of the road known by the name of Aaron's pass — a spot 24 miles from Mudgee, presenting every facility for concealment and then sudden appearance of robbers — when two armed men came into view, and presenting revolvers at the driver of the coach and at the passengers, gave the usual order to ' bail up.' The coach was stopped, and the passengers having to alight, were searched and robbed of whatraoney and valuables they had upon them, and then the mail-bags were taken. The name of the driver of the coach was Robert M'Cartny. There were Bix passengers in the coach, and they were robbed of about £6 ouly. The robbers were disguised, having sacks over tlmir bedies, with holes in the sacks for their arms to come through, and their faces were covered with pieces of cloth like dirty calico. A shot was fired by one of the bushrangers before the mail-bags were given up, but it has not transpired at whom tho shot was aimed. There were seven mail-bags, and they were opened and taken away by the bushrangers, The bags were afterwards recovered by the Keen's Swamp police. Venice, the city which Byron so glorified in song, will probably, it is said, erect a monument to the poet. Upon the subject, an Italian paper, the " Gazetta di Venzia," says that an Anglo-Italian Committee has been formed to raise subscriptions for the monument, which will be erected in Venice. J