THE LATE FOOTBALL DISPUTE.

Waikato Times, Volume 2188, Issue XXVII, 17 July 1886, Page 3

THE LATE FOOTBALL DISPUTE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sik,— In your last issue Mr W. S. Stewart accuses me of making a violent personal attack on him, and says he h.is "neither time nor inclination to bandy offensive personalities with literary swash-bucklers " of my "type." This sentence seems, however, < to show that he has both time and inclination for literary swash-bncklerism of a pronounced, if not of a violent sort. This he apparently does not see. lam glad that a habit of not meddliner in my neighbour's concerns has saved me in this instance from* presumption, or I should have presumed that Mr Stewart would understand the meaning of his own English. As this is tho first personality I have been guilty of to Mr Stewart, so it is the last I shall address to him, and few will deny that it has been fairly earned. On Saturday last the Gainbridge head master himself ordered his te.un, not merely off the ground, but out of Hamilton. It is hardly fair therefore for him to complain of the responsibility for his team's action being thrown on him, and I carefully spoke of him throughout by his official designation. As regards the points in dispute a few words will perhaps throw some light on the rights of the case. _ First, as touching the night school, it is true that a special regulation of the Auckland Board of Education "allows the a-verage attendance of the evening school in country districts to be taken into account in calculating the teacher's salary.", The necessity for the insertion of such a special permission in the case of night scholars, not to insist on its restriction to country schools, shows tho absurdity of supposing night scholars members of the day school. No such provision is deemed necessary in the case of High School pupils or others over school age, tho only other pupils in anything like an exceptional position. Again, the establishment of e\ening classes is purely voluntary on the teacher's part ; ho is authorised to charge fees at the joint discretion of himself and his committee, and the latter body is legally entitled, and under easily imaginable circumstances would be morally bound, to refuse its sanction to such classes. To these legal considerations may be added the iib-ence of a limit of age, a serious consideration to those in charge of boys. As regards Bnrt'.s case, I am not aware that any objection was trade to him. Aswoweie .ill i»noiant of the presmco of night school boys till a few minutes before the dispute, so I, and I believe most, if not .ill, concerned on our side, were ignorant th.it Buifc had left school. The hr.st I saw of it \i,as in a letter signed, I think, by "David Lee." The three months' rule I must confess I have never heard of, either in football or in cricket, though I ha\e played both, as boy or master, in \arions schools in li eland and in England ; nor can I find anyone who has heard of s?nch a practice. I would submit that it. it. by the practice- of Home schools we are ruled in such matters, and not by the local fancies of Cambridge or any other place — and tho number of men in the Waikato qualified to speak of the practice of Home schools is, I run given to nuclei stand, rather limited. At any rate, till I see such a rule affirmed by competent authority, I shall take leave to doubt its exigence. 1 have now, Sir, written my last on this subject, and can only lepeat my lvsrret that it was e\er necessary to write at all. — I am, yours tiuly, J. Vereker Bindon. Hamilton, July l(i, lS.S'i.