Vacation Jobs

The common idea of the University man as a good New Zealand joker who can mix his concrete or dig his ditch as well as any labourer during his vacation, came in for disapproval from Professor E. Percival, Canterbury's zoologist. He thought that the long vacation job had become an undesirable convention. When it was not financially necessary the student was far better in spending time advancing his own work, said the professors.

The student who would never be a working man was not going to benefit by knowledge of the working man and his habits. The student had a different purpose in life, he said, and it was better for him to concentrate on that.

Rather an interesting opinion nicely calculated to raise the hackles of the decent New Zealand jokers, which it did, and something worth thinking about.

Both Prof. Percival and Mr. J. Leggatt, head of Christchurch Boys, agreed that students were no duller than they used to be in the "good old days." Mr. Leggatt pointed out that with larger numbers being educated right through secondary schools and the universities instead of the select few, the average level of ability was bound to fall. It was one of the concomitants of mass education.

The dispersal of brains because of zoning was decried by this forthright school teacher. Instead of having the upper crust of the really bright school children scattered through different schools he would like to see them brought together more so that instead of them riding on the wave of their brilliance while their schoolfellows floundered behind them they would have more competition at a higher level.