ABSTRACT
From the turn of the century, and particularly with the appointment of George Hogben as Inspector-General in 1899, the situation changed. Attendance at secondary schools rose fast with the implementation of an effective free place scheme in 1902-3. By 1915 the proportion of secondary students in the population had risen to 120 pupils out of every 10,000 people (from 40 in 1900), and 25 years later the figure was 262 with 64 per cent of primary pupils moving on to secondary school. At the same time, attendance at primary school became more regular. Although the original act of 1877 had established a principle of compulsory attendance between the ages of seven and 13, this was not effectively implemented until a law of 1910.27
In both primary and secondary schools, the moral code which triumphed was that of the English public school, and 'character' was the dominant ideal. Games, especially rugby, were viewed as a necessary training in this virtue. The Department of Education's School Journal, for example, made much of learning on the playing fields. In an article on the dangers of smoking, we find the claim: 'It's a bad sign when a boy does not like games and no boy can play vigorously if he smokes. Great
cricketers, runners, footballers and swimmers are rarely smokers.' Primary-school rugby competitions became organized around the tum of the century, and within the school itself there were efforts to differentiate the teaching of boys from girls. Although there was some co-education in district and technical high schools, the big city secondary schools remained staunchly single-sex institutions, committed to the institutions and values of the English public school - school houses, prefects, corporal punishment and the aim of turning out not 'jellyfish and molluscs' but 'he-men with backbone and spirit tough enough to face the stem realities of life' as one headmaster noted. In such a context the playing of rugby became the core of the unofficial curriculum - far more important than book learning. Indeed Truby King, expressing widely held prejudices, warned in 1906 that too much intellectual work, too much cram, paved the way for nervous instability, 'sexual irregularities and insanity itself'. Instead he urged regular games and praised Otago Boys' High School for making football compulsory.28
