The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-01-13 00:00:00

SCHOOLBOYS TO THE RESCUE!

A " Persecuted Parent" having had the temerity to
write a letter to the Deily News on the subject of
Sehoolbuya and their Holidays (under the sitreaitic
title of "'lime Boys "(it! has been replied to in the
same journal by a perfect avalanche of letters, from
amongst which we select the following :--
•

" A ' Persecuted Parent justly describes the life of many
assistant masters in large schools, 'they teach the
boys in school, play with them out of school. and have
them in their rooms in the evenings.' The 'Parent' sneers
at this excessive seal, msd advises them to take their work
more easily, and so be able to get on with shorter holi-
days. Will you allow no assistant-master to express his
opinion that we can do far more good to the boys in the
cricket-tlebt awl in our own rooms than in the class-room.
We feel the almost utter usehamess of classics, mathema-
tics, ite., in educating boys either to think or to act, and it
ism this account that we devote our time and energies so
much to improving them out of school. We do so
cheerfully enough, but it is up-MU work, often cramping
to the intellect, and irritating to the tensper, and
could scarcely be endured for more than nine mouths
in the year. When I add that our remuneration is
small compared with the expense of our own education
and the honours we have most of us mtined at the Univer-
sities, I scarcely think our three months' holidays are exces-
sive, nor would they be too long for the boys if parents
would see that they got the home education, whlsili is as
indispensable as that given In schools. Your correspondent
seems to think that boys niust spend their holidays either In
roasting wild or in smashing furniture at home. If he would
try and study their characters and cultivate sympathy with
their feelings and thoughts, he would probably come to
regard the society of his boys as a pleasure snit not as a per-
secotion.—l am, etc. " PEDAGOGUE."

•' Your correspondent, who signs himself ' A Persecuted
Parent,' seems never to have experienced holiday Joys as a
school.l oy, and a hen he complains of the occupation of the idle
hands id his sons, his own conduct is 'plainly reprehensible
In not providing amusement, that those hands may be idle
no longer. He says that niasters like the holidays. I should
like him to runiertake the management of 40 or 50 boys, and
see how long his temper or health would hold out, whereas
(in his present state) 11l be bound los sons don't often come
Into contact with him. As for the 'holiday-schior
suggestion, he says he has scarcely 'courage to whisper it,'
and with reason ; for a more execrable piece of villany
never was perpetrated. When the hull tys are of any
length it is customary to set holiday ta:ks wherewith to
drive away ennui, arid what more can we desire? It is
probable that 'A Holiday Schoolmaster ' would often be
left to hold sweet commune with tea bare desks, and to
eujoy the pleasures of solitude, while his intended pupils
would, with good cause, steal the eujoymeut %Mel they so
richly deserve after past mental exertions. Congratulating
myself that your correspondent is no parent of Mint,. I
ant, etc., "A MERCHANT TATLoga. SelloOLBolf."
haveirist beenfreading In your paper theletter of a 'Per-
secuted Parent, and thank you very much for sticking up '
for is boys in your article. Goes the ' stern patient ' who
shuts up a number of highapirited boys in a back parlour to
spend their helidays expect for a moment that they will sit
all day leng twiddling their thumbs ? Jost fancy, when we
come home from &school (where we work hard, learn tell you
sending sate a 'holiday school,' as he calls it, to work
Poor deluded pater, does he think that schoolmasters can
keep and histrdet boys for nothing? Ile hail better try
teaching himself, and see how he like in. Grumbling et
bills—,innidieg at the hol:.i. is 'hi. Ii Is,, tool
better semi his poor pm se,ited otrvro,.v t , a op, ity
ache.); they d..tet have many holida)* there. I wish he
would come into a rooin with half-a-dozen of us, and pro-
pose his friendly notion to Its, some day. I think I can
adely say that ten minutes afterwards Lila nearest relations
wouldn't know hits. Are you time, lie. Editor, that non
have not made some in istake in his signature 1 I think, it
ought to be a Pi rsecuting Parent.' If ho complains of
its boys, I will show him how to remedy it. Let Inns give
hi. troublesome offsplegs some tried wholesome &noise.
silents, buy them good and instnietive hooks and tiiys. I nor
only a leg of fourteen myself, lot I think that he would fled
lay plans answer. kitty them those hatta-crow in steamboats
and engines, arid let them end out what cruises the loco-
motion. Give them the hulls of ships, and let them rig them.
If you gave them this to do they Nouldn't want to try their
saws on your tarry chair. Take them to 'daces of instruction
and amusement conihined—there are plenty of such in
LOllllOll. lint I think that if the poor old boy is no mean on
to wish to take away boys' holidays that lie would also be too
mean to give them rational amusements. Let our
'stern patient • remember that in thues of mental idleness
they need not be in physical bilenese. While they are at
school they learn Latin and Greek, but try and let them
learn lathe holidays the why and the wherefore of things. I
am sorry I don't live near my 'persecuted ' friend, for then I
and my friends might have a personal interview with him,
and just show him, by pulling his nose for him, our trite esti-
illation of hlm.—liopiug, sir, you will publish this letter, I
remain, your obedient servant, _ _

ONE OF THOSE "

"One would think from the letter of 'A Persecuted Parent,
In your impression of the sth inst., that he had never been
a boy himself, never been to school, never experienced the
delightful feelings of returning home after a term at school.
Fancy having to spend Christmas Daylat school. which the ' Per-
secuted Parent would have timed,— what adull, sorrowful day
it would be, instead of a merry. joyous one. If holiday schools
were adopted, and 'brother Tin, who wants no holidays,'
were sent to tete, ten pounds, and a good deal more, I ex-
pect, would have to be paid, a sum which the 'Persecuted
Parent ' du emit feel inclined to pay for a private tutor, so
why should he be desirous of sch..le, for which he would
have to pee more? If Ids wish were granted, hie own sons
would lie the only ones who would have to un-
dergo the dreadful ordeal, for a true British
Paterfamilias woulient think of destroying his boys'
holidays. Again, if these measures were established, boys
would begin to hate heartily anything bearing the semblance
of a book, so that, instead of learning more, they would
learn less ; and when they did get home, they would smash,
not only all tne furniture, but everything that came within
their reach, if this poor unhappy went cannot endure
the noise and rejoicings of a truly British boy, it would
have been better for him hail he remained In the
bachelor state, and never stirred outside his house for fear
of setting eyes on one of those creatures which Ito so much
despises. It wouldn't do him any harm to be made to ' nut
the gauntlet ' by every schoolboy in England, a ceremony
which, In boys' meaning, consists in the victim having to run
past the boys stationed in a row, and receiving a good kick or
punch with the list from each as he passes.-1 am Ac.

° I have just been taking a sossint at the letter headed
'Those Boys. For my part! cannot see so much to com-
plain of in the Christmas holidays. I wonder what yom
' Persecuted Parent would say if he was in my lather's
place. I would be sorry even to let him be there even for
one day, lest he might commit suicide, onto something quite
as bail. I will just give him an out-line of what my
pater has to put up with. I am one of six boys ;
four of us have Bust returned Irons school ; one of my
brothers has taken a great fancy to a violin, which
mixturea the most unearthly sounds, till at last our pater
was obliged either to make him stop or else to have bins
taught : lint he is as good-terupered a pater as ever I saw,
tool rather than spoil my brother's sport lie had Mut taught.
'When he went back to school lie Leased to play, and so
forgot HMOs lessons; and now again this Christmas ho has
begins his mmtlihig music, which nearly drives the pater
wild. 'then another of his brothers is always strumming on
the concertina, another is for ever playing a penny whistle;
I myself think I am monstrous fine on the 1 Seeman flute ;
an when we begin our ninsie altogether It is the most dig-
cordint row nine ever heard. I am afraid your ' Persecuted
Parent ' would be sick almost of life. 'Welt, another time
lily pater was writing his sermon for he is a clergyman',
a hen lie heard • deep, booming kind of noise co 11l ll g
every minute from below stairs. At first Inc thonglit it
must be waste 110 W magical lisstrumem. But again
it came, so for curiosity he just went down, and there
he saw two of sin, each with a douldeleirrelled gun
which lie hail given us, firing blank cartridges at a
stuffed rook, which 1, knowing something of the art of ,
taxidermy, had stuffed. At first lie stisal dumb with '
astonishment, partly at the thing itself, and partly because
we wore on the ground-floor in a small room, a ith all doors
and windows shill, blazing away an If we were having
a sham fight ; however, Inc took it very good-temperedly
(though, of course, he was amp, and said that it
was holiday those, so he would not say very much,
which we had hardly a right to expect. Now I should
like to know what your persecuted friend IVOUId
ray to that, when she blame. her boys because
they are is little boisterous, as is our nature. Our
pater thinks there is no time so pleasant as when weave
ell of us at home, and when we go back to school he wean
Chic most woe-begone face you over saw; real as to coming
home only once a year, he would not hear of such • thing
and then to think that every one would be satisfied with it
I don't know of a single person who would be satisfied.
Let your • Persecnted Parent • note that sons were
sent Isere to be taken care of, and not when they become
noisy and tiresome, as Is their nature, to complain
of them and write letters us the paper about
them. I wonder how torch the boys themselves wsll respect
their parents when they know that they are considered a
bore when they come house. Home soon becomes a bore to
them, and they find only too easy ass outlet for their spirits
In messes and places where home suet its aasoviations are
not muds thought if, We hear a good deal of the young
men of the period and their fast unsocial ways, unlike the
good old simplicity in our great grandmothers' times. We
• Boys' notice a fierce round of articles aimed with ter-
rible precision at mne gushing, rushing spirits every time
we conic home. I know a tioy who ones said this to me
• Sly pater was awfully jolly when we were leaving home,
and juat as'we put off he about. out, "Well, boys, good-bye ;
boprit;orbligthvwt notht
now my holidays brain." ' The effect produced by this boya
itlN:r4eflfetrna'f,liiio..hiewknheL:,t.noTtl7 lead
rk, but from the security from his constant • j I 'a ng from persecuted pater. When each }gin becomew
men they
will have but little sympathy with the dear old song, • Home,
sweet home.'-1 am, she, "0742 Or SIX BOYS."

All work and no play makes Jack a dull hoy.' This aid
sayings' Persecuted Parent 'does not seem to beliere in, from
the style of his letter. He must know very little of
the nature a boys a he thinks by taking away their
holidays and amusements he can make models of
industry and perseverance. What, I ask, would one
persecuting
EnglillPt'yme.paifrer subjected
such
boy wonr
asl
grow np a dull blockhead, sullen and ill-tempered. with no
boyish spirit or energy about him. Does our friend reMem.

her when he was a boy? Would he like his ran of opera-
tion to have been rattled out then? I fancy not. Let a
boy work, fact make him work, whilst at school, and
when holiday time comes round he will not only enjoy his
holiday the none. but it will du him good both mentally and
physleally.-1 sin,
ONE WHO STICKS VP POE 'THOSE BuYS.“
" As nay husband and myself.always took forward with una•
*ed satisfaction to the rsokaserubliatof our family (three
hum are boys) at home for the holidays, I feel much
surpriseal at the tone at your correspondent. 'A Persecuted
Parent's ' letter : and am convinced that there must be
some fault on his part. surely. Sir, we ought not
to give our beat attentions and best humours to etrangers
Mom whom we frequently oubmit to be bored),
whilst our own limb anal blood, In the form of buys,
we leave to ehift for themselves without resources,
anal then complain of their getting Into mischief. I can
, only say that we Anil our intelligent boys the best of come
psnion, anal most grateful, are they for being assisted anal
directed Is their pursuits dining the Isaliala)s RIO their
innocent hilarity goes far to dispel the atinospheie of care
with which all LI OLIO parents are more or less sur-
rounded. I do 111,t cc mail to lay claim tai the team
'gushing:. but I treat (MLA' mothers and fathers too will
be old° to bear like testimony with one who now enclos“
her card, and subscribes henelf, " 3IATERFAMILIAS."