* june 1, 1929

A meeting took place at Oxford this week in connexion with the scheme for providing cricket fields for Oxford elementary schools - this is symptomatic of what is taking place all over the country. Oxford is doing well. A thousand boys from eighteen elementary schools last year had been enabled to play matches on college grounds. Help had been received from various colleges ... It is, however, not merely a university movement ...

Last year in London an appeal was made by the County Council for the fortunate secondary schools to give such facilities as were possible for elementary schools in crowded places such as Bermondsey ... It is desirable that this sensible procedure by loan should be extended to every city and town of the country.

50 years ago

* june 4, 1954

Both the Home Secretary and Mr John Gittings, principal of Aycliffe Approved School for Boys, referred on Tuesday to the decrease in juvenile crime. The number of children and young persons found guilty of indictable offences was 14 per cent lower than in the previous year. This was duly reflected in a drop in the committal rate to approved schools. But, as Mr Gittins said, the reasons for the decrease are harder to assign. From television to the Coronation all sorts of causes have been suggested. The gradual reassertion of parental presence is among the more convincing ...

Teachers share the blame for the shortcomings of the young. From industry, the forces, the courts, come criticisms of the inadequacy of modern schooling. If teachers accept some responsibility for the bad, as all of them do, it is also fair that they should receive some acknowledgement when things improve.