Original correspondence

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 605, 2 May 1882, Page 2

Original correspondence

EDUCATIONAL. To the Editor.

Sir, —Will you please find me space for a few remarks in connection with tho German Bay School Committee. I see in your last issue that Messrs Jolly, Jones, and Curry took it upon themselves tohold a meeting which was not the ordinary one. There is a standing resolution that, the committee must meet on the Wednesday on or before full moon, and I sr*e by consulting the almanack that the moon is full next Wednesday. Now, Mr Editor, if 1 have construed tho act properly, before a special meeting can be* held v-nch member of the committee must have a written notice served upon him, informing him at what hour tho meeting takes pla.ee. Now, this was not done, so consequently it wa3 not a special meeting. Out of the seven members there was four that knew nothing about it. Although our worthy Chairman knows so well how to make use of all the votes he has. even after that it is only Messrs Jolly, Jones and Curry against the other four, and I can assure the three that it h the intention of the

four to enforce their rights, and have the meetings held at the proper limes, and we shall call upon the Chairman to hold tbe regular meeting on Wednesday evening next. And when tho proper time comes it is my intention to move that tho minutes of the last meeting be expunged from tbe minute book. Further on I see in their report tbat the committee bad recommended Miss Mary Jones as sewing mistress. Now, Mr Editor, how can that be? The committee has not met since their last meeting, and I for one never heard about Miss Jones' appointment till I read it in your issue on Friday. Does it not seem a farce to appoint a girl of hardly fifteen years as sewing mistress. I have no doubt tbe girl is clever, but I should like to know where she got her sewing education. I have known her for the last ten years amongst the cows night and morning, but not as a sempstress, so her knowledge of the art must bo small, as her mother is neither a sempstress or dressmaker, for if tbat had been the case she might have had sufficient education to have imparted some to others ; as it is, it must result in a dead failure. I should like to know why Mrs Thos. Morgan was not asked to accept the situation, as she is a first-class hand ; but it is easily told ; she is not a favorite with certain of our noble-blooded committeemen. Now, Mr Editor, my idea about education is that the foundation must be well laid, and if I am right in that, none but experienced people, who have gained their certificates by passing their examination, should be employed by any committee, nor should the Board of Education sanction their appointments, as there are plenty of certifi: cated masters and mistresses in New Zealand, and I, for one, can see but little use in entrusting the education of our children to novices without certificates, while professionals are to he had for the same hire, I must ask you, Mr Editor, to take no notice of the length of line I have run out; the tub is just about empty. Accept my apology for taking up so much of your l valuable space.—Yours, etc.,

EDWIN CHAPPELL, Member of School Committee, German Bay,

To the Editor.

Sir, —As the Board of Education is a representative body, being elected by the school committees, would it not be well if tbe electors expressed their opinions sometimes upon the doings of the Board ; especially upon those doings involving important principles of moment to the whole of the Colony ? I am led to this enquiry by the following facts :—A school committee at Heathcote possesses a chairman, whose saintly modesty and purity are not 60 well known to everybody as to his brother and to the committee. The parents of some of the children attending the school in question ask the schoolmaster to protect their children, while they are at school, from the familiarity of the chairman. The master informs the chairman of this request in a private and respectful letter. At tbe next committee meeting the schoolmaster is dismissed without any explanation. When the Board is informed of the committee's action, instead of saying "you have dismissed your master without allowing him to defend himself ; we cannot allow a schoolmaster to be thus crushed in the performance of his duty and therefore we will not consent to his dismissal." the Board actually allows the dismissal, and so joins with the committee in an unjust attempt to ruin a good teacher. If the Board so far forgets its duty for fear of the Heathcote committee, it is time for other committees to call it to some sense of right. For this is not a question of one schoolmaster, or of one committee, or of half a thousand children merely ; it is the question whether teachers generally shall, without full and sufficient reason, be so liable to be packed up and down the country, to have their homes broken up, and their reputations injured, and, perhaps, be hunted from tho work for which they aro best fitted, tbat they will lose that interest in their school and in the the welfare of their district, shown by so many teachers in various ways. Why should not a teacher be encouraged to feel that tbe place he lives in is his home, and that he lives among friends ? He is more likely to say to himself " I will settle here for life : and as this is to be my home and tbat of my children, I will do my best to help forward every improvement that is possible. I will especially endeavor to improve the minds, the habits, and the morals of the children here among whom my own are to grow up." To carry out such resolves requires considerable time and some feeling of security and repose. But if there is frequently thrust upon his mind ttie possibility that some caprice may start him off on an expensive journey, he would scarcely have the heart to plant a few potatoes in his garden, much less to sow the seeds of moral and intellectual improvement in his district, beyond what be is paid to do in his school. The North Canterbury Board of Education seems, however, to entertain tbe pernicious idea that if any members of a school committee wish to amuse themselves, or gratify their spite, or uphold their dignity, by | packing a schoolmaster off, they have a right to do it. It therefore becomes the duty of every committee composed of reasonable and just men, such as we fortunately have here, to instruct their representatives upon this important matter. Yours, etc., W. B. Akaroa, May 1,1882.