SCHOOL UNIFORMS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 420, 11 July 1947, Page 5

SCHOOL UNIFORMS

Sir,-Your contributor Elizabeth Ann Mites writes an amusing article on the controversial subject of school uniform. I would like to point out a few of the misconceptions under which she labours. (1) Girls’ school uniforms normally do let the sun "get at some part of the bare skin other than the face." In summer most schools allow short sleeves and ankle socks, and in many the girls remove their tunics for physical training. (2) Black stockings are not worn in (3) winter by all schools, Many wear fawn. Stiff starched collars are rare if not unknown. (4) Speaking to boys in the street is not generally forbidden. How can it be, when so many secondary schools, particularly in the smaller centres, are mixed ones?

UNA DROMGOOLE

(Christchurch).

Sir,-Elizabeth Ann Miles’s article "School Uniform" and Other Things" published in a recent issue of The Listener had, I think, many points quite untrue of many schools. The girls attending our school, for instance, are not compelled to wear black stockings or gloves, and they consider it a privilege to be able to wear the school uniform. I thin heving a school uniform gives a spirit of belonging, besides looking much smarter. I think wearing lipstick and rouge with a school uniform is ridicuious. If ‘the girls want to look older than per really are there is plenty of time ‘for that in week-ends or holidays, Mrs. Miles also says girls are not allowed to converse with boys in the street. There are few schools where ‘this is forbidden.

SCHOOLGIRL

(Leeston).

Sir-I think that in her article "School Uniform and Other Things," Elizabeth Ann Miles is very unjust. Why is it that she criticises New Zealand schools in general when many of our schools have none of the rules she thinks should be done away with? For instance she thinks that girls look and feel uncomfortable in long black stockings, hats, gloves, and stiff collars, which she Says are compulsory at High Schools. At the school I attend these articles of clothing are not compulsory but may be worn if desired. We like our uniform, and I think that girls without one often look scraggy. Mrs, Miles also states that she thinks the rules that stop girls and boys speaking to one another are absurd. Such a rule is unheard of in many schools, and so why are we all blamed for it? Your correspondent writes about girls in Canada using lipstick and rouge. If the poor dears want to grow up before their time, let them; but New Zealand schoolgirls don’t want to seem too old too soon. In any case we have plenty of time to use make-up on Saturdays and Sundays. \ Fifteen to twenty pounds is the amount mentioned by Miss Miles as necessary to buy our school uniforms. I think that it would cost no less to buy ordinary clothes, and so I don’t see why she should make so much fuss about this matter.

FOURTH FORMER

(Southbridge High School),

Sir,-In a recent issue of your paper you published a letter written by Elizabeth Ann Miles discussing School Uni-

form and other things. In reply I would like to say that children in New Zealand are very satisfied to wear school uniform. The amount you would have to pay for material to make frocks would amount to the cost of a school uniform, and in the depression the schools did not compel the children to wear school uniform. In my opinion the children look more like school children in uniform, and much tidier and neater. They do not have to suffer with stiff "Peter Pan" collars. In summer there is a summer uniform and in the winter they have the thick uniform. I am quite sure Elizabeth Ann Miles has the wrong idea about many schools. ~ Using lipstick and rouge in the American schools is very stupid. Do the girls do their work any better;°do they look like school children at the age of nine or ten? The American children grow up too quickly for their age. And in how many schools out here has your correspondent seen where girls have their hair cut one inch above their collars; or plaits tied with navy and black ribbon? Most pupils find it the most convenient way to carry their school books in a bag on their shoulder. This is allowed because of the long distances some pupils have to come. The books are kept in very good condition whether they are in a suitcase or in a bag carried on the shoulder.

HEATHER

GOSS

(Southbridge).

Sir,-While L. Armstrong, in criticising my article, writes that there are "good and useful reasons for school uniforms" she fails to give us any indication as to what these reasons may be. Your correspondent has evidently mistread my article. May I assure her that far from being "completely lawless," Canadian girls, on the whole, have minds that are singularly healthy and mature, partly, I believe, because a reasonable portion of their discipline comes from within rather than from without. Regarding the anarchy that L. Armstrong seems to see in my proposals, what I suggested was, that our girls would benefit from being allowed to wear their own or their parents’ choice in school clothing, or as an alternative, that a uniform be devised which was less restrictive, healthier and more attractive. Is this anarchy? The criticism of my article by "Sixth Former" was, I think, more sound perhaps because, unwittingly, Sixth Former proves some of my contentions and has sound observations to make on some others. She says, for instance, that the school uniform is unserviceable, difficult to keep clean, and hard to press. Its only virtue is, apparently, that it is one example of unpleasant things that will have to be borne in later life. Surely the theory that a uniform is good which has nothing to recommend it except that it constitutes a kind of "hair shirt" for the chastening of the spirit in preparation for greater evils, constitutes an unfortunate philosophy. "Regarding the use of jewellery and cosmetics, I had no intention of suggesting that this was tolerated in Canadian schools. What I said was that the principles and teachers in Canadian Secondary schools tried to stop the girls using them but never quite succeeded. I agree with "Sixth Former" that there is a tendency for the better-dresssed girl to be more popular, but when the girls are all dressed alike the focus is merely shifted from the best-dressed girl to the girl with most pocket money, or the girl

with the most socially prominent parents. This is a sad commentary on our social system, | Again, in making the observation that the girls who are "silliest" about boys afte those who have no brothers, "Sixth * Former" is proving my point that girls who are denied normal, everyday association with the opposite sex endow that sex with a mystery and glamour which result in unnatural and undesirable behaviour.

MRS.)

ELIZABETH

MILES

(Auckland).

(We have no more space for létters"6n this subject.-Ed. )