NOT SENT TO SCHOOL

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21190, 13 August 1940, Page 8

NOT SENT TO SCHOOL

TWO CZECH CHILDREN FATHER BEFORE COURT (Special to Times) TE AWAMUTU, Monday At today’s sitting of the Te Awamutu Magistrate’s Court, Emil Ellbogen, of Arohena, appeared before Mr W. H. Freeman, S.M., on a charge of failing to enrol two children at a school. The prosecution said that though the defendant had been written to and warned that the children must be enrolled, he had not done so at the time the information was laid. The defendant had stated that he wished his children should first acquire a thorough knowledge of their native language, Czech, and this could only be done by keeping them at home and teaching them. It was his duty to enrol them at a school.

The defendant, who conducted his own case, said that he had enrolled the children on July 15. He had interviewed the education authorities at Hamilton, and at Wellington, where he had been advised by Dr. Butcher that the only thing to do was to enroll them. He felt that his children should first of all learn their own language and attendance at a school might tend to deprive them of that. He was a Czech and his experience in Europe had been that very many of his race had been forced to learn German and could not understand their own language. The magistrate pointed out that if people came to settle in this country they were expected to carry out the laws of the country, and if the children were to become citizens of New Zealand, the parents’ obligation was

to see that they were sent to school where the English language would be learned. That came first and

they could be taught their native language at home. The Education Board representative said that he could not confirm whether the children had been enrolled, and the case was adjourned until the next Court so that the necessary inquiry could be made.