Mexborough and Swinton Times, April 29th, 1932
Impressions Of Mexboro’ And Its School
Where Do We Find The Money?
The two French teachers who visited the Members Secondary School on Wednesday and Thursday in connection with a scheme referred to in our last issue inaugurated by the Modern Language Association, spent a busy day on Wednesday endeavouring to see as much as possible of the activities and organisation of the school in the short time at their disposal.
The teachers Mons. H. Roudil, Proviseur of the Lycee d’Amiens and Mlle. Benhamou, Directatrice of the Lycee de Jeunes Filles, Amiens, arrived in Mexborough on Tuesday evening after spending the day visiting the various educational centres in Leeds, in company with 22 other French teachers who had come over to England under the same auspices.
Though time was precious, a representative of the “South Yorkshire Times” was courteously granted a brief interview with M. Roudil on Wednesday.
Mexboro’ “A Nice Place”
Though the district round Amiens is very different from South Yorkshire, the main industries being the manufacture of cloth and velvet, M. Roudil was quite favourably impressed by the aspect of the district on his first visit to the North of England. “I had been told,” he said, “that on coming to Mexboro’ I should see plenty of smoke, black houses and coal pits, but I don’t find it bad at all, and I don’t see so many of those coal pits. I see one or two in the distance that is all. My impression of Mexboro’ is quite an agreeable one. I find it a very nice place.”
School Equipment “Perfect”
Asked what he thought of the school, M. Roudil said, “Of course we have a lot to learn from you, especially in material organisation and comfort.” He said that his own school was housed in an old monastery. “Our hall for gymnastics was destroyed by the bombardment of 1918 and has not yet been rebuilt. I therefore appreciate the hall I see in the Mexboro’ school,” he remarked. “We find that the equipment in your school is everywhere perfect. It seems to me that you are lacking nothing or not much, at any rate. We have no playing fields as you have here, and we don’t play games so much. There is a big difference between English and French schools in that respect though we have progressed very much since the war. We follow at a very great distance behind” added M. Roudil with a smile.
“What impresses me is how you find the money to do all this. We are always stopped when we want to do anything by the money question.” Reminded of the recent severe cuts in expenditure on education in this country, M. Roudil said “Though they have stopped a lot with you, when you want to do something, it seems to me you are not definitely prevented. It is far more difficult for us to get the money.”
Co-Education
In reply to a question concerning co-education in France, M. Roudil said that under the French educational system there were mixed classes for children between the ages of 5 and 10, after which the children went to boys’ and girls’ schools respectively, though in some cases there were mixed classes for pupils taking advance courses.
He declared himself a firm believer in the value of correspondence between pupils at French and English school as a means of promoting a mutual understanding between the two nations and said he had derived much benefit from corresponding with an English friend during his youth.